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COPYRIGHT 

BY 

JOHN  V.  SEARS,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


TO 

JEANIE, 

WHO    IS  WITH   THE   FATHER   IN   HEAVEN, 
AND   TO 

PROF.  J.  E.  0., 

HE     OF    THE     CHILD-HEART, 

WHOSE   GENTLE   ENCOURAGEMENT   FIRST   LED 

TO     THE     GIVING     OF     THESE     HYMNS     TO     OTHER     EYES, 

AND  WHO    IS  ALSO    WITH   THE   FATHER   IN   HEAVEN; 

TO  THESE  TWO, 

TRUSTING   THAT   THEY    KNOW    AND    LOVE    EACH    OTHER, 

THESE   ASPIRATIONS   AFTER   THE   BETTER  LIFE 

ARE   LOVINGLY   DEDICATED. 


THESE  meditations  began  in  a  soul's 
effort  to  commune  with  the  Soul  of  the 
soul,  to  speak  in  secret  with  the  Father  of 
Lights  about  the  problems  of  being,  the 
sorrows  and  joys,  the  sins  and  sanctities, 
the  emptiness  and  fullness,  the  shames  and 
glories,  the  deaths  and  lives,  of  the  human 
experience.  And  the  communion  was 
always  in  the  hope,  in  the  confidence,  that 
love  is  the  secret  of  the  universe  and  wisdom 
the  light  of  its  revealing ;  and  that,  in  the 
fact  of  creation's  being  continuous,  its  deed 
but  being  done,  lies  the  explanation  of  its 
imperfections,  the  assurance  that  its  shadows 
but  conceal  a  light  that  it  may  all  the 
brighter  break  forth,  because  for  the  little 
while  it  is  concealed. 

Later,  some  of  these  uplifts  of  heart  were 
shared  with  a  pastor's  people,  some  of  these 
people  so  kindly  acknowledging  a  helpful 
ness  that  it  seems  there  may  be  others 
whose  thoughts  of  things  might  brighten  by 
a  sharing  of  this  heart. 

And  so  the  little  book  is  sent  forth ;  al- 


though  from  the  nature  of  their  origin, 
its  meditations  lack  that  literary  unity,  that 
freedom  from  any  repetition,  which  a  differ 
ent  kind  of  book  might  show,  their  unity 
being  in  the  fact  of  aspiration,  and  their 
repetitions,  in  again  and  again  thinking 
upon  the  love  of  God,  which,  like  His 
blessings  of  life,  though  they  are  the  old, 
old  blessings  are  yet  new  every  morning 
and  fresh  every  night. 

Their  meanings,  therefore,  will  best  clear, 
their  help  best  help,  by  using  them  after  the 
manner  of  their  origin,  the  one  meditation 
for  the  one  silent  time,  as  the  mood  maybe, 
as  the  need  may  ask. 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  THE  LOVE  OF  LOVE, i 

II.  MORE  LIFE  AND  RICHER,  ...  9 

III.  LIFE  FEEDS  ON  LIFE,      ....  17 

IV.  FATHER  AND  CHILD,      «...  25 
V.  THE  BLESSED  FLIGHT,    ....  33 

VI.  LOVING' s  PERFECT  WING,      .   .  39 

VII.  THOU  LIFE  OF  EVERYTHING,     .  47 

VIII.  A  PERFECT  HARMONY,       ...  53 

IX.  ABOVE  IT  ALL  GOD  Is,    ....  59 

X.  A  HUMAN  FACE, 65 

XI.  LOVE  FASHIONS  EVERY  WING,  73 

XII.  MAY  WE  BLESS  BACK  AGAIN,  .  81 

XIII.  WHEN  SURE  OF  THEE,  ....  89 

XIV.  BEAUTIES  EVERYWHERE,  ...  95 
XV.  A    MULTITUDE    OF    TENDER 

THOUGHTS, 103 

XVI.  MY  BROTHER'S  FACE, 109 

XVII.  THAT  WE  MAY  THY  BEAUTY 

BEHOLD, 117 

XVIII.  THE  CHRIST  is  BORN,     .   .   .   .  125 
vii 


viii  Contents. 


PAGE 

XIX.  BY  GRACIOUS  CHANGING,    ...  133 

XX.  NOT  FAR  AWAY, 141 

XXI.  ALL  WINGS  THAT  FLY,    ....  147 

XXII.  DREAMS  AND  WAKINGS,     .   .    .  155 

XXIII.  MY  THOUGHTS  ARE  FLOWERS,  .  163 

XXIV.  LAUGHS  AT  DEATH, 171 

XXV.  IN  EVERYTHING  REVEALED,  .   .  179 

XXVI.  I  GRIEVE  NOT  HOPELESS,  ...  185 
XXVII.  OUR   HUMAN  HUNGER'S  MINIS 
TRY,    193 

XXVIII.  BEING'S  FULL  BLOSSOM  WILL 

BLOW, 201 

XXIX.  WITHIN  MY  HEART, 207 

XXX.  ABROAD  ON  THE  THOUGHT  OF 

GOD, 215 

XXXI.  EVERYWHERE, 223 

XXXII.  SOMETHING  HIGHER  SINGS,  .   .  229 

XXXIII.  To  EVERY  HEART  THAT  BEATS,  237 


1. 

THE  LOVE  OF  LOVE, 


THE  LOVE  OF  LOVE. 
God's  love  rounds  the  sun,  and  our  happy  earth 

For  its  beasts  and  its  growing  grains  ; 
His  love  is  a  chanting,  generous  song, 

And  the  fruits  are  its  sweet  refrains. 

All  life  that  burns  any  loving' s  flames 

His  tender,  His  true  heart  wills ; 
In  spite  of  the  sin,  with  its  aching  shames, 

All  the  earth  with  His  goodness  fills. 

His  love  sets  the  clover's  stalk  afire 
With  the  flame  that  woos  the  bees ; 

His  love  as  well  wove  the  bees'  desire, 
And  the  eye  that  the  clover  sees. 

His  love  makes  the  fire  in  the  thrush's  breast, 

And  burns  in  its  tender  lay ; 
His  love  loved  it  well  in  the  mother-nest, 

And  loved  it  the  summer's  day. 

In  the  human  mind  His  thought  thinks  true, 

In  the  human  love  He  loves  ; 
His  heart  is  a  sky  of  the  tender  blue, 

Our  hearts  are  its  flocks  of  doves. 

On  His  love's  great  waves  we  rise,  we  fall, 
And  can  ne'er  be  lost  from  His  arms ; 

Though  countless  things  of  the  earth  appall, 
No  eternal  evil  harms. 


The  Love  of  Love. 


In  the  life  of  His  holy  Christ  is  seen 

The  truth  of  His  human  deeps, 
That  we  might  know  what  His  lovings  mean 

In  our  life  that  laughs  and  weeps. 

His  love  is  the  throbbing  within  my  heart 

Of  a  tender,  a  human  grace  ; 
My  eyes  are  His  love's  own  shining  part 

When  they  rest  on  my  dear  friend's  face. 

We  are  kept  by  His  love  as  no  unfledged  birds 

Are  kept  by  the  mother-wings  ; 
When  we  lift  from  the  nest  of  earth,  we're  words 

That  His  deathless  loving  sings. 

So  I  trust  to  His  love's  great  certainty, 

And  in  holy  quiet  rest, 
Assured  that  whate'er  befalleth  me 

Is  that  holy  loving's  best. 


"I17E  thank  Thee,  Master  of  our  love  and 
*  V  of  our  life,  that  Thy  hard  earth  breaks 
forth  into  all  these  gentle  .things,  that  are 
flowers,  and  beasts,  and  birds,  and  little  chil 
dren.  We  thank  Thee  that  so  the  hardness 
of  our  conditions,  the  severity  of  our  experi 
ences,  our  very  hardnesses  of  heart,  are  but 
some  of  Thy  conditions,  whereby  and  where- 


The  Love  of  Love. 


through  we  will  break  forth  into  all  tender 
and  true  thoughts,  into  a  goodness  that  out 
rivals  Thy  earth's  mellow  autumns. 

Thou  hast  not  cast  us  forth  from  Thy 
heart,  things  of  Thy  contempt  and  failure. 
With  thinkings  unsearchable  in  their  holy 
tenderness  Thou  dost  cherish  us,  determin 
ing  that  we  shall  become  what  Thy  deepest 
and  truest  heart  intends.  This  confidence  in 
Thee  as  a  present  Creator,  still  at  Thy  tasks, 
brings  us  peace  for  our  trouble,  strength  for 
our  weakness,  diligence  for  our  indifference, 
holiness  for  our  sin,  and,  for  our  hatreds,  love, 
sweetening  all  our  ways.  It  is  this  that  gives 
to  us  a  meaning,  and  makes  our  lives  move 
through  their  changes  with  a  touch  of  eter 
nity  upon  them,  within  them.  Thou  hast 
large  places  and  patient  times  in  which  to 
work  out  Thy  meanings  of  us ;  and  these 
places  and  times  are  ours,  as  we  work  out  our 
lives  unto  Thy  meanings,  helping  Thee  com 
plete  Thy  nature  in  the  eternal  children  of 
Thy  love. 

This  faith  makes  man  sacred  unto  us,  and 
helps  us  to  discover  Thee  in  these  human 
deeps.  We  believe  truly  that  Jesus,  Thy 
Christ,  said  truth  when  He  said  the  word : 
"He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the 


The  Love  of  Love. 


Father."  Thou  art  just  the  beautiful  and 
tender  humanity  He  was,  in  Him  Thyself 
appearing  for  our  gain  in  every  beauty  of 
kindness,  in  every  glory  of  love. 

Thou  dost  come  forth  in  Thy  creation  to 
make  Thyself  known,    and   to   bless    Thy 
children  with  the  graces  of  Thy  noble  nature. 
Thou  art   light  within  the  sun  and  stars  ! 
Thou   art  beauty  within  the  sky  and  rose  ! 
Thou  art  strength  within  the  oak  and  granite! 
In  the  seasons  Thou  art  faithfulness  !     In  the 
grains  and  fruits  Thou  art  kindness  !     In  the 
birds  and  lambs  Thou  art  gentleness  !     We 
are  glad  that,  seeing  all  these,  we  are  seeing 
Thee  ;  they,  some  truth  and  beauty  of  Thy 
heart  spoken  to  us  in  the  simple  speech  of 
our  childhood  ;  we,  unable  to  hear  Thy  love's 
full  word,  to  understand  Thy  wisdom's  full 
thought. 

But  we  need  to  know  that  all  these  are  the 
expressions  of  a  human  life  and  love  ;  and 
this  we  come  at  in  Jesus ;  this  is  the  mean 
ing  of  the  Christ ;  this  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Creative  Word,  by  which  all  things  were 
made  that  are  made,  becoming  flesh  and 
dwelling  among  us  that  we  might  behold 
the  glory  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father, 
full  of  grace  and  truth ;  this  is  the  service 


The  Love  of  Love. 


with  which  He  serves  us,  helping  us,  in  all 
the  highest  and  holiest  of  our  race,  to  catch 
some  glimpses  of  Thy  everlasting  meanings 
in  creating  the  earth  and  its  human  chil 
dren. 

And  so  for  Him,  our  gracious  Elder 
Brother,  showing  forth  the  secrets  of  our 
selves  as  we  behold  in  Him  the  ideals  of  what 
Thou  dost  mean  in  the  making  of  us ;  show 
ing  forth  the  secrets  of  Thine  own  heart  out 
of  whose  holy  love  we  are  fashioned,  we 
thank  Thee  !  It  is  in  Him,  as  the  ideal 
humanity,  that  we  foresee  the  gentle  blos 
soms,  the  ripened  fruits,  into  which  the  hard 
nesses  of  our  conditions  and  experiences 
break  forth.  In  Him  we  see  the  everlasting 
meanings  which  Thou  art  working  out 
through  us  and  through  our  lives. 

And  so  we  have  in  Thee  a  peace  passing 
understanding,  a  diligence  in  every  good 
word  and  work,  grounded  in  a  confidence 
which  means  that  failure  can  not  take  us  in 
any  abiding  desolation. 

This  truth  brings  Thee  near  unto  us,  even 
within  the  deeps  of  our  own  beings,  where 
we  may  rind  Thee  unto  every  worship,  unto 
what  inspiration  we  need  in  order  to  be 
beautiful,  good,  and  true.  In  making  our- 


The  Love  of  Love. 


selves  noble  and  true,  in  doing  all  we  can 
to  ennoble  our  fellows  in  the  truth  that  is 
loving  and  the  loving  that  is  true,  we  are 
rendering  unto  Thee  the  truest  and  most 
acceptable  service. 

For  this  great  faith  we  thank  Thee,  and 
with  its  great  comfort  would  comfort  all 
Thy  people,  with  its  holy  enthusiasm  stir  up 
every  soul  to  attain  its  highest.  In  this  faith's 
great  passioning,  that  the  beauty  of  humanity 
may  become  the  daily  reality  of  our  lives,  we 
are  but  seeking  diligently  that  the  beauty  of 
the  Lord  our  God  be  established  upon  us  all. 


II. 

MORE   LIFE  AND  RICHER, 


More  Life  and  Richer.  11 

MORE  LIFE  AND  RICHER. 
The  violet  knoweth  not  the  sun 

But  when  its  blossom's  blowing,  — 
A  bit  of  other  answering  sun, 

Its  being's  father  knowing. 

And  we  must  know  Thee,  living  Lord, 

By  this,  that  we  are  being  ; 
'Tis  only  love  alive  in  us 
That  life  in  Thee  is  seeing. 

Within  us  deep,  must  be  Thyself, 

An  answering  music  giving, 
Or  we  can  never  certain  sing, 
"  We're  life  eternal  living  !  " 

So  have  Thy  Easter  here  in  us  ; 

Be  Christ  and  Mary  meeting, 
And  all  His  happy  Easter  friends, 

Our  hopes  of  life  completing. 

Ah,  then  !  Thou'lt  see  Thyself  in  us, 
Our  hearts  together  blending  ; 

And  we  shall  see  ourselves  in  Thee, 
A  childhood  never  ending. 


LORD  of  life,  from  whom  we  come,  in 
whom  we  live,  unto  whom  we  rise  in 
every  change,  we  ask  Thee  to  give  unto  us 
more  life  and  richer  to-day.  Let  these 


12  More  Life  and  Richer. 

shadows  in  which  we  are  so  lost  from  Thee 
be  all  dispelled  by  Thy  bright  shining,  until 
we,  like  flowers  breathing  in  the  sun,  may 
know  we  are  in  Thee  and  bathed  in  Thy  ce 
lestial  light,  by  Thine  own  holiest  loving 
warmed. 

We  mistake  the  form  of  life  for  life  itself, 
and  so,  when  that  form  changes  as  it  ever 
does,  we  think  the  life  is  gone,  we  lament 
us,  saying  death,  and  breathing  out  our  end 
less,  sad  good-bys. 

By  Thine  own  joyous  fulness  in  our  hearts, 
help  us  to  know  that  every  change  of  life  is 
but  for  fuller  life,  the  low  form  cast  aside 
that  that  life's  fuller  form  may  come,  a  hap 
pier  embodiment,  a  day  of  journey  nearer 
Thee,  Thou  life's  own  perfect  home. 

About  us  -ever,  by  a  busy  change,  life's 
lowest  showing  forth  is  becoming  its  higher 
manifestation.  The  soil  that  has  itself  from 
Thee,  the  living  One,  goes  up  and  on  the 
chemic  ways  of  change  until  it  is  a  blossom 
sweetening  all  the  air,  a  fruit  that  feeds  the 
hungry  kind.  The  low  grass  runs  in  won 
drous  ways  of  change  until  it  is  the  strength 
of  kine,  the  gentleness  of  sheep.  And  these 
go  on  until  in  man  they  are  thought  and 
love  and  great  activity. 


More  Life  and  Richer.  13 

And  yet  this  matter  throughout  all  the 
ways  of  its  so  marveling  change  was  touched 
unto  its  glory  by  indwelling  life.  Although 
it  seemed  to  us  alive,  it  was  not  life,  but  only 
life's  fair  showing  forth.  In  change  that 
came  to  it,  when  passed  it  back  again  to 
soil,  there  was  no  going  down  of  life.  Life 
has  but  cast  its  garment  off  to  live  on  some 
other  where,  some  other  how  in  Thy  great 
universe.  The  seed  goes  up  the  life-filled 
ways  of  death  until  it  is  a  blossom  smiling  in 
the  sun.  The  grub  goes  up  the  life-filled 
ways  of  death  until  it  is  a  dragon-fly  with 
joying  rainbow  wings.  The  creeping  worm 
goes  up  the  life-filled  ways  of  death  until  it 
is  a  butterfly  to  sup  in  sinless  joy  the  ban 
quets  of  the  flowers.  The  egg  goes  up  the 
life-filled  ways  of  death  until  it  is  yon  bird 
of  blue  with  sky  upon  its  back,  upon  its 
breast  the  earth,  its  modest  song  a  glory  in 
the  air. 

Within  ourselves  are  changes  busy  ever,  in 
love  and  thought  and  purpose,  and  in  the  out 
ward  life ;  the  old  is  passing  away,  the  new 
becoming,  until  each  day  we  are  some  dif 
ferent  thing  from  what  we  were  before.  But 
in  this  change  of  our  becoming,  life  always 
is  itself  the  weaver  of  the  change.  And  so 


14  More  Life  and  Richer. 


when  our  beloved  go  the  shadow  ways,  we 
are  sure  that  they  go  up  into  life,  not  down 
into  death, — death  but  a  change  through 
which  the  life  fulfills.  We  can  not  say  in 
truth  that  they  have  been  ;  they  are  !  Thy 
life  is  breathing  through  them  still,  Thy 
love  is  still  their  beauty  and  becoming. 

But  oh,  so  lost  we  are  from  Thee,  that 
this  great  happy  truth  seems  to  us  a  lie,  a 
dream  of  beauty  vanishing  before  some  cruel, 
grim  reality.  But  come  into  us  now,  Thou 
Life  eternal  and  divine,  and  give  us  in  Thy 
self  a  holy  resurrection.  From  graves  that 
hold  in  darkness  call  us  forth  until  we  shall 
have  conscious,  everlasting  life  in  Thee.  As 
Thou  from  out  our  graves  art  coming  forth 
to  say  our  names,  may  all  our  Marys  so  en 
raptured  say,  "  Rabboni,"  may  all  our  Johns 
be  forever  filled  with  deathless  love  ! 

When  Thou  art  thus  arisen  in  us  to  ascend 
and  take  us  captive  with  Thee  into  fullest 
life,  we'll  know  our  beautiful  beloved  ones 
have  risen  in  Thee  and  are,  although  the  eye 
of  sense,  that  blessed  us  with  theirvision  once, 
can  not  behold  the  glory  now  revealed  in 
them.  In  having  Thee  in  conscious  fulness, 
we'll  know  them  ours  in  deathless  love,  in 
joy  that  sings  above  the  discords  of  all  grief. 


More  Life  and  Richer. 


__ 

So  give  us  Easter  time  in  Thee,  Thou 
risen  Life  and  glorified,  and  we  will  hold 
some  dear  companionship  with  these  we  call 
the  dead,  who  are  Thy  living  ones  and  ours. 


III. 

LIFE   FEEDS  ON    LIFE, 


17 


Life  Feeds  on  Life.  19 

LIFE  FEEDS  ON  LIFE. 
Life  feeds  on  life,  and  every  joy 

Has  grieving  as  its  root ; 
The  happy  worms  go  out  in  death 

That  happy  birds  may  flute. 

Doves  glorify  the  winds,  and  make 

Them  some  dear  tenderness  ; 
But  hawks  are  there  with  cruel  beaks 

That  all  the  winds  distress. 

Though  rapturing  beauty's  everywhere, 
And  joys  break  forth  and  sing  ; 

Yet  ugliness  as  present  is, 
And  serpent  fangs  that  sting. 

And  not  alone  without,  but  in 

My  being's  deeps  there  be 
The  ugliness  that  grieving  is, 

The  beauty  that  is  glee ; 

Some  truest  thoughts  on  wings  of  light, 

Some  false  that  fly  to  kill ; 
Some  loves  that  seem  Thy  holiness, 

And  some  that  evil  will. 

And  so,  dear  Lord,  I  can  not  read 

Life's  riddle  Thou  hast  set ; 
I  can  not  see  Thee  perfect  good 

In  evils  that  so  fret. 


20  Life  Feeds  on  Life. 


I  can  not  read  some  life  divine 
At  joyings  in  the  hawk  ; 

Some  gentleness  that  maketh  great 
Where  murders  cruel  walk  ; 

Some  holy  love  in  lion's  jaws 
When  feasting  on  a  child; 

It  shows  but  greed  that  cruel  is, 
Creation  that's  defiled. 

Within,  without  I  can  not  find 
Thee  in  these  evil  things ; 

They  make  a  night  upon  my  faith  ; 
And  cripple  all  my  wings. 

They  put  such  discord  in  my  tune 
That  foolish  are  my  words ; 

They  make  such  winter  desolate 
Thou  canst  not  hear  my  birds. 

And  yet  I  can  not  live  unless 
Love  be  the  soul  of  things ; 

Unless  truth  be  the  deepest  cause, 
All  life  its  blossomings. 

And  so  I  trust  Thee  where  my  heart 
Can  not  Thy  goodness  trace; 

Creation's  shadow  yet  will  break 
And  show  Thy  loving  face. 


Life  Feeds  on  Life.  21 

I  still  believe,  Thyself  fulfilled, 

Thy  universe  become, 
Will  hear  each  thing  thy  kindness  praise, 

And  not  a  voice  be  dumb  ; 

That  I'll  the  perfect  beauty  be 

Thy  heart  has  always  meant  ; 
And  with  these  awful  makings  then 

Be  at  a  dear  content. 


T^HY  greatness,  O  Lord,  baffles  us.  We 
*  can  not  understand  Thee.  We  believe 
that  Thou  art  a  perfect  wisdom,  and  boldest 
all  things  in  the  tenderness  of  a  perfect  love. 
But  our  sight  denies  our  faith.  There  seem 
what  confuses  our  lives  as  the  brain  of  the 
fool  is  confused  ;  and  we  can  not  realize  that 
Thou  art  in  everything  all-wise  and  all-lov 
ing.  There  is  the  beneficence  of  quiet  days  ; 
but  Thy  noisy  storms  make  havoc.  There  are 
in  nature  the  gentle,  beautiful  things,  tender 
as  a  baby's  kiss,  pure  as  a  true  mother's  love. 
The  dove  blesses  the  winds  ;  the  hawk  curses 
them  with  the  cruelty  of  death.  The  sheep 
and  the  kine  make  the  fields  holy,  but  the 
cruel  dogs  waste  the  flock,  crimsoning  the 
greenness  with  the  sin  of  death.  In  the 


22  Life  Feeds  on  Life. 

shallows  of  rivers  the  minnows  swim,  mak 
ing  the  waves  athrill  with  their  life ;  but  the 
perch  is  near  with  the  hunger  Thou  hast 
given  it,  until  this  beautiful  minnow  life 
goes  the  dark  ways  of  death.  There  is  the 
lily  for  beauty  and  fragrance ;  and  the  poison 
vine  for  aching  and  death.  The  soil  gives 
us  life;  as  well  it  gives  us  death.  Even 
the  thrush  feeds  its  high  flight  and  song,  that 
make  the  winds  a  glory,  upon  the  helpless 
worm.  Our  cradles  are  in  our  homes,  and 
oh,  life  is  so  satisfying ;  but  the  coffins  come 
and  fill  with  our  cradle's  treasure,  and  oh, 
life  is  so  desolate  !  Love  is  here,  making  life 
a  June  day  for  perfectness ;  death,  swallow 
ing  up  love,  and  life  is  desolate  winter  and 
starless  night. 

So  fly  our  lives  away,  a  wing  woven  of  the 
very  light,  and  making  all  the  winds  to  be 
music ;  a  wing  woven  of  the  very  darkness, 
and  making  all  the  winds  a  moan  of  desola 
tion.  Within  us,  too,  the  fairness,  gentle 
and  holy  loves,  thoughts  of  truth  and  right 
eousness ;  but  as  well  the  fierce  and  unhol] 
feelings,  the  false  and  wicked  thoughts 
From  the  nests  of  our  deepest  souls  fly  dove 
for  blessing;  and  after  them  go  the  hawk 
for  cursing,  and  the  leaves  of  our  tree  of  lifi 


Life  Feeds  on  Life.  23 

are  red  with  murder,  like  Lady  Macbeth' s 
hand,  and  no  rainfalls  purify  them  to  their 
innocent  green  again,  but  they  do  rather  all 
the  rains  that  fall  incarnadine,  making  the 
crystal  crimson,  and  the  ways  of  sin  and 
death  familiar  friend. 

So  runs  our  riddle  of  life,  O  Lord,  in  its 
tangling  confusion ;  and  it  is  hard  for  us  to 
believe  that  Thou  art  good,  that  all  Thy  ways 
are  love,  and  that  Thou  wrongest  no  little 
life  that  takes  its  rhythmic  heart-beats  from 
Thine  own. 

Yet  still  is  nothing  lost.  So  have  we  had 
experience  that  helps  us  to  believe  that  noth 
ing  is  in  vain,  that  each,  that  is,  is  servant  to 
some  higher  end.  Back  of  our  confusing 
thought  must  be  Thy  perfect  wisdom  working 
out  the  holiness  of  Thy  love  which  surely 
means  the  happiness  of  all  that  is.  As  we 
see  about  us  that  change  is  but  fulfilment, 
these  changes  in  us,  in  our  lives,  must  be  but 
some  pushing  on  to  fulness  of  life  in  Thee, 
the  all-living,  all-loving  One.  But  for  some 
holier  becoming  Thou  surely  wouldst  not 
have  these  changes  coming  swift  and  sad. 
These  heart-breaks  surely  would  not  be,  but 
that  Thou  through  them  art  giving  fuller, 
holier,  happier  love.  Surely  Thy  love  at 


24  Life  Feeds  on  Life. 

travail  now  has  birth  that  ever  satisfies  each 
pang  of  its  begetting.  Surely  Thou  hast  a 
father  heart,  and  all  its  love  shall  be  for  us 
a  perfect  childhood,  laughing  in  a  perfect 
life. 

In  this  faith  keep  our  hearts  in  spite  of 
all  that  seems,  in  spite  of  all  we  suffer ;  and 
to  this  faith  be  ever  proving  Thy  tender 
faithfulness,  until  we  shall  find  at  last  for 
this  sorrow  of  existence,  a  perfect  love  and 
life  that  satisfies. 

Be  to  us  hope ;  and  wing  our  dark  de 
spairs  until  they  fly  and  sing, — our  birds 
of  perfect  dawn,  love's  day  of  June,  our 
blessing,  endless,  beautiful.  So  make  our 
faith  be  passing  into  sight  that  our  souls  may 
abide  in  the  certainty  that  in  all  Thy  crea 
tion  Thou  art  seeing  of  the  travail  of  Thy 
soul  and  being  satisfied, — Thy  soul  that  is 
the  perfect,  the  eternal  love. 


IV. 
FATHER   AND   CHILD, 


25 


Father  and  Child.  27 

FATHER  AND  CHILD. 
Thy  holiest  heart  must  have  a  child, 

And  so,  in  love,  I'm  here  ; 
Thy  yearnings  deep  in  fatherhood 

In  me,  a  child,  appear. 

A  Father  I  must  have,  as  wings 

Of  birds  must  have  the  air  ; 
And  so  Love's  dearest  father-heart 

I'm  finding  everywhere. 

And  who  shall  say  us  nay,  when  we 

Together  weep  and  laugh  ? 
What  hand  refuse  the  love's  dear  cup 

Wherein  life's  full  we  quaff? 

O  let  the  holy  cups  o'erbrim 
With  love's  exhaustless  wine  ; 

Each  one  together  quaffed  in  joy 
Makes  fellowship  divine. 

And  fellowship  divine  doth  make 

A  holier,  truer  child, 
The  glory  of  Thy  fatherhood 

Within  me  undefiled. 


T^HOU,  our  Master  in  love  and  life,  art  not 

1       lonely  amid  Thy  worlds,  but  hast  an 

infinite  companionship  everywhere.     Each 


28  Father  and  Child. 


thing  Thou  hast  made  is  a  dear  companion 
to  Thee,  keeping  Thee  company  through  all 
these  sad  and  happy  ways  of  creation.  Each 
child  of  Thy  begetting  is  a  fellow-heart  to 
Thee,  answering  back  Thy  smiles  and 
laughter,  giving  Thee  heart-beat  for  heart 
beat,  life  for  life,  appreciation  for  apprecia 
tion.  Thou  couldst  not  be  at  joy,  Thy  life 
would  be  unfulfilled,  if  Thou  couldst  not 
create  Thy  fellow-hearts  to  love  and  com 
panion  with;  if  Thy  life  could  not  flow  its 
devious  happy  ways  through  all  these  ruddy 
veins  which  it  has  fashioned. 

We  need  Thee.  Thou  art  our  daily, 
necessary  life,  although  we  may  not  know  it ; 
although  it  seems  that  we  breathe  out  our 
own  breath,  live  out  our  own  life,  with  no 
great  need  of  Thee.  But  we  ought  to  know 
Thee,  to  realize  that  Thou  art,  and  have  some 
conscious  fellowship  with  Thee.  Life's  lone 
liness  is  so  laughed  away  with  friendly  face 
when  we,  in  truth,  know  Thee  our  friend. 
Life's  sorrows  are  so  comforted  when  we 
know  Thee,  the  comforter.  Life  has  such 
meanings  large  and  deathless,  when  we  know 
that  all  its  changes  move  in  Thee,  the  gra 
cious,  changeless  One.  With  Thee  at  fellow 
ship  with  us,  how  duty  grandeurs,  how  glad- 


Father  and  Child.  29 

ness  sings,  and  everything  is  full  of  holy  life 
that  evermore  grows  more  alive,  each  change 
a  growth  and  blossoming,  a  sunnier  fulness 
of  Thy  perfect  love. 

O  give  me  to  realize  that  companionship  ! 
Give  me  to  know  Thee,  Friend  and  Father, 
in  all  my  life's  great  way.     The  beating  of 
Thine  own  heart  be  consciousness  in  mine. 
Thy  breath   of  life,    eternal,  beautiful,  be 
breathing  forth  in  mine.     Than  any  friend 
to  me,  than  my  hands  and  feet,  than  myself 
to  myself,  be  Thou  nearer,  more  real,  my 
daily,  dear  delight.    To  be  known  so  by  me 
must  be  Thy  joy,  as  Thou  dost  realize  I  am 
becoming  the  truest  Thou  dost  mean.     So 
knowing  Thee,  I  will  have  a  deep  and  satis 
fying  life,  a  large  and  perfect  attainment  in 
all  duty,  in  all  I  am  and  all  I  am  becoming, 
a  new  depth  and  sacredness  of  being.     And 
having  Thee  so,  I  will  have  my  brother  in 
new  and  loving  joy,  for  he  is  some  coming- 
forth  of  Thy  humanity,  even  as  I  am  some 
thing  of  Thine  own  human  heartedness.     It 
is  Thy  life  in  him  that  has  so  fashioned  him 
in  the  truth  and  beauty  that   delights  me. 
Thy  love  is  human  in  his  face.     He  is  the 
joy  of  Thy  fellowshipping  heart  revealed  in 
flesh.     In    all    the  need  in  which  we  need 


30  Father  and  Child. 

Thee,  we  need  each  other;  our  lives  without 
each  other,  incomplete. 

We  can  not  dwell  in  perfect  solitude  and 
yet  in  life.  Life  means  love,  friendship, 
companions,  a  dwelling  together  with  others. 
It  means  marriage  and  home  and  children, 
society,  the  state,  commerce,  the  church. 
Naught  in  the  universe  is  segregated  soli 
tude.  All  things  are  by  some  dear  together 
ness.  In  fellowship  everything  becomes. 
By  each  living  for  all  and  all  for  each  there 
is  a  perfect  order,  a  thrilling  life.  Selfish 
isolation  makes  one  wing  halt,  and  life  is 
crippled  in  its  flight.  It  puts  discord  in  the 
tune,  and  the  song  can  not  sing  its  perfect 
joy  and  holiness. 

And  yet,  while  so  each  unto  each  must  be 
for  love  and  service,  we  are  ourselves, — not 
lost  in  these  for  whom,  with  whom,  we  live. 
Indeed,  such  life  of  fellowship  is  the  way  of 
our  becoming  more  and  more  ourselves.  It 
is  forever  the  differentiation  of  the  indi 
vidual  until  he  is  a  life  and  beauty  of  his 
own,  no  senseless  saying  of  some  one  else  by 
rote.  The  more  I  am  my  brother's  in  service 
and  in  love,  the  more  I  am  myself,  the  very 
child  Thy  everlasting  Fatherhood  thinks,  as 
Thou  thinkest  no  one  else  of  all  the  countless 


Father  and  Child.  31 

children  of  Thy  love.  I  am  not  merged  in 
Thee,  nor  ever  will  be.  The  more  Thou 
livest  for  me,  in  me,  the  more  Thou  art  trans- 
cendant  God.  The  more  I  live  for  Thee,  in 
Thee,  the  more  I  am  a  child  unique,  a  beauty 
of  Thy  heart,  which  Thou  canst  not  reveal  in 
any  other  child  of  Thy  making.  I  am 
needed  by  Thee  and  needed  by  my  fellows 
for  completion,  and  none  other  can  fulfil  my 
place. 

So  grant  me,  Master  of  Being,  the  grace 
of  Thyself,  realizing  in  all  life,  in  every 
holiness.  Give  unto  me  my  brother  of  this 
human-life-divine  in  a  perfecting  love.  Give 
me  unto  him  in  life  unselfish  and  beautiful. 
So  will  Thy  universe  grow  perfect,  and  I 
become  that  treasure  of  Thy  heart,  a  true, 
ideal  child,  a  human  heart  filled  with  Thine 
everlasting  love  and  truth. 


V. 

THE  BLESSED  FLIGHT, 


33 


The  Blessed  Flight.  35 

THE  BLESSED  FLIGHT. 
No  flight  is,  Lord,  but  Thou  art  wind 

On  which  the  wings  do  beat ; 
In  flight  from  Thee  at  every  turn 

'Tis  life  of  Thine  we  meet. 

And  what  in  fear  we  name  dark  death 

Is  just  a  little  night, 
Where,  'neath  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings, 

We  rest  for  newer  flight. 

O  happy  earth  !  though  seeming  sad, 

O  changes  coming  swift ! 
There  are  no  wings  of  changing  but 

In  God  to  God  they  lift. 

O  tender,  deathless  Life  that  is  ! 

A  life  that  never  dies  ; 
In  Thee,  the  Perfect,  everywhere, 

Through  griefs  to  joys  I  rise, 

Until  I  am  at  perfect  flight, 

Thy  dearest  face  my  skies, 
And  sing  out  certain  what  we  guess, — 

That  no  one  ever  dies. 


T 


HOU  art  nowhere  absent  from  Thy  crea 
tion.  No  part  of  Thy  creation  is  in  a 
loneliness  without  Thee.  Thou  art  the 
companion  of  all.  Thine  is  the  inmost  life 


36  The  Blessed  Flight. 

of  all.  Not  a  sparrow  is  upon  the  winds 
but  that  Thou  dost  fly  with  it.  When  it 
droops  in  the  shadow  of  death,  Thou  dost 
experience  the  darkness  with  it,  together 
passing  the  change  into  some  resurrection 
of  deathlessness  in  Thy  great  love.  No  grain 
of  sand,  no  granite,  no  bit  of  lifting  har 
vest,  no  water  in  the  deep,  is  at  its  work 
alone.  Thou  art  with  it  at  its  tasks.  It  is 
some  part  of  Thy  everlasting  being.  Truly, 
Thou  art  the  "God  of  the  granite  and  the 
rose."  Thou  art  in  the  restless  sea,  and  the 
flocks  in  the  fields  are  alive  in  the  quiet  of 
Thy  being. 

And  more  true  it  is  that  none  of  Thy 
human  children  is  bereft  of  Thee.  There  can 
be  no  human  solitude  where  Thou  art  not. 
Whatever  blindness  may  be  in  our  eyes, 
wherever  a  man  journeys  the  pilgrimage  of 
life,  there  goes  a  Father  and  a  child.  The 
journey  is  but  a  journey  of  childhood  into 
Fatherhood ;  in  the  far-traveling,  enriching 
and  growing  toward  that  fulness  of  life 
wherein  Father  and  child  complete  each 
other,  and  know  each  other  in  many  a  dear 
delight.  In  all  the  strifes  of  the  earth  Thou 
art,  that  they  may  come  at  last  into  a  holy 
peace.  Master  of  the  sin  Thou  art,  that  it 


The  Blessed  Flight.  37 

may  somehow  serve  Thy  great  holiness.  In 
the  human  frailty  Thou  art,  that  it  may  issue 
into  strength,  Thy  strength  made  perfect  in 
weakness.  In  all  earth's  great  unmakings 
that  pain  us  so  Thou  art,  that  so  Thy  perfect 
makings  may  appear,  as  when  trees  and 
stones  are  cut  and  destroyed  that  so  may 
issue  the  cathedral,  that  like  an  anthem  in 
stone  sings  Thy  praises  in  all  the  winds. 

And  so,  not  only  what  the  sparrow  experi 
ences  dost  Thou  experience,  but  what  every 
human  child  of  Thine  experiences,  in  that 
Thy  heart  has  its  part.  In  the  unseen  holies 
of  his  being  Thou  abidest,  that  he  may  be 
come  and  be.  In  him,  beyond  his  experience, 
Thou  art  an  infinite  life,  in  which  he  may 
ever  grow  and  unfold  Thy  truest  thought  of 
his  nature.  Wherever  he  wanders,  a  prodigal 
in  sin  and  shame  and  rioting,  in  the  holiness 
of  his  higher  nature,  of  an  innocency  he  has 
known,  Thou  abidest  a  Father  still,  to  wel 
come  him  returning  with  the  kiss,  the  ring, 
the  robe,  the  feast,  the  true,  rich  life,  with 
out  which  consciously  lived  there  is  sorrow 
on  our  sea,  and  it  can  not  be  quiet. 

And  so  in  all  the  religions  of  the  earth 
Thou  art,  helping  Thy  children  ;  in  each 
faith  some  truth,  some  love  from  Thine  own 


38  The  Blessed  Flight. 

divine  heart.  Thou  hast  left  none  of  Thy 
earth  without  a  witness  to  Thee.  Thou  hast 
left  none  of  Thy  creation  without  Thyself. 
And  in  Thy  presence  we  are  glad  that  Thou 
art  bringing  all  Thy  children  into  a  realized 
brotherhood,  in  religion  and  in  life,  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  up  Thy  race  of  men. 

We  are  glad  that  the  antagonism  of  re 
ligions  is  giving  way  to  a  peace  wherein 
differences  may  be  discussed  in  a  spirit  of 
love,  in  an  increasing  desire  to  know  but  the 
truth.  It  is  blessed  to  see  this  day,  when  the 
sympathy  of  religions  is  being  felt,  and  each 
is  in  the  way  of  enriching  the  other ;  when 
their  blending  voices  will  sing  the  sweet, 
true  anthem  of  holiness  and  love,  whereby 
the  hosts  of  humanity  will  take  up  the  music 
of  Thy  righteousness  with  rejoicing  lip  and 
life.  In  the  light  of  all  religions  blending, 
we  will  see  our  way  into  a  clearer  truth. 
When  the  race  of  man  abides  in  a  full,  rich 
brother-love,  out  of  that  love  the  unseen  will 
vision  itself,  the  full  great  truth  appearing, 
and  making  for  man  his  holy,  joying  summer. 

Even  so  come,  Thou  gracious  Life  of  all, 
and  let  Thy  kingdom  be  at  its  tasks  of  glad 
ness  in  every  human  heart. 


VI. 
LOVING'S   PERFECT  WING, 


39 


Loving' s  Perfect  Wing.  41 

LOVING'S  PERFECT  WING. 
Thou  lovest,  Lord,  and  by  that  love 

Art  living  everywhere ; 
No  little  heart  beats  out  its  joys 

But  thou  art  living  there. 

Thy  love  comes  out  in  all  the  beasts, 

In  all  the  wings  that  fly  ; 
We  hear  it  in  all  songs  that  sing, 

In  all  the  sounds  that  sigh. 

In  every  fairness  we  but  see 

Thy  loving's  grace  a-bloom  ; 
In  every  ugliness  no  less, 

In  every  night  and  gloom. 

But  not  at  perfect  love  thou  art 

In  this  that  here  we  see  ; 
'Tis  here  Thy  love's  but  fashioning 

A  perfect  home  for  Thee. 

What  we  shall  be  in  what  we  are 

Is  scarcely  any  shown  ; 
As  in  the  root  we  can  not  see 

The  blossom  that  is  blown. 

But  we  are  sure  Thy  holiest  love 

Gives  life  to  everything ; 
That  all  Thy  makings  yet  will  spread 

Thy  loving's  perfect  wing. 


42  Loving'  s  Perfect  Wing. 

And  for  such  faith  we  give  Thee  praise, 
And  love  life's  tender  grace, 

And  pray  Thee  that  in  us  Thou  'It  make 
Thyself  still  holier  place. 


THINE,  O  Lord,  is  a  love  incarnate.  It 
dwells  with  men.  It  is  men.  What  it 
is  in  its  absolute  transcendence,  we  do  not 
know.  What  it  is  dwelling  with  us,  and  in 
us,  we  are  learning  in  many  a  gracious  les 
son.  It  comes  forth  in  the  beauty  of  the 
earth,  —  flower,  bird,  radiant  sky,  —  and  we 
know  that  Thou  art  beautiful.  It  comes 
forth  in  these  things  of  use  which  keep  the 
fires  of  life  at  their  tender  glowings,  —  grain, 
fruit,  the  streams  that  run  among  the  hills 
watering  the  valleys,  —  and  we  know  Thou 
art  a  faithful  servant  unto  us.  It  comes 
forth  in  the  things  of  truth,  each  true  to  its 
nature  and  true  in  its  relations,  —  oak,  oak  ; 
fire,  fire  ;  water,  water  ;  steadfastness  every 
where,  from  which  science  is  born,  and  this 
great  progress  of  man  we  call  civilization,  — 
and  we  know  that  Thou  art  a  God  of  truth, 
faith-keeping  always  with  Thy  children 
whom  thou  lovest.  It  comes  forth  in  these 
babes,  making  holy  our  homes  ;  in  these  ten- 


Loving' s  Perfect  Wing.  43 

der  women,  these  strong  men.  In  all  this 
humankind  Thou  art  dear  unto  us,  showing 
Thyself  friend  and  lover. 

We  love  Thee,  but  not  in  a  love  absolute 
and  worthy  Thine  infinitely  perfect  being. 
We  love  Thee  in  this  in  which  Thou  dost 
dwell  for  the  enrichment  of  us  all  in  the 
treasures  of  Thine  own  holy  life.  As  Thou 
dost  come  forth  in  flowers,  in  them  we  love 
Thee  !  love  Thee  !  As  Thou  art  at  flight 
and  at  song  in  the  birds,  in  them  we  love 
Thee  !  love  Thee  !  As  Thou  art  at  Thy 
gracious  kindness  in  grains  and  fruits,  in 
them  we  love  Thee  !  love  Thee  !  As  Thou 
art  true  in  these  faithful  laws  of  everything's 
becoming, — oak,  oak;  fire,  fire;  water,  water, 
— in  them  we  love  Thee  !  love  Thee  !  In 
all  this  that  makes  life  and  joy  and  thought 
and  truth,  we  give  Thee  adoration.  As 
Thou  art  human  in  our  dear  babes,  the  men 
and  women  we  love  and  trust,  who  ennoble 
us,  we  love  Thee  !  love  Thee !  with  the 
deepest,  tenderest,  truest  love. 

And  loving  Thee  so,  Thou  dost  help  us 
into  Thine  image  and  likeness.  Loving 
babes,  we  grow  childlike ;  loving  women,  we 
grow  tender  and  true ;  loving  men,  we  grow 
strong,  unselfish,  faithful — we  become  chil- 


44  Loving 's  Perfect  Wing. 

dren  in  Thee  who  can  indeed  show  forth  in 
them  the  beauty  and  holiness  of  their 
Father. 

And  so,  for  these  human-divine  children 
of  Thine,  we  thank  Thee.  We  rejoice  that 
Thou  hast  made  us  members  with  them  in 
the  great  and  holy  family  of  life.  Forever 
the  universe  is  gracious,  and  ourselves  en 
larged  in  nobleness,  because  Thou  hast  given 
us  mothers.  Forever  has  life  and  the  uni 
verse  some  dear  meanings,  because  Thou 
hast  given  us  fathers.  Forever  life  has  glad 
ness,  beauty,  worth,  because  Thou  hast 
given  us  brothers,  sisters,  friends.  In  wife- 
hood,  in  husbandhood,  we  enter  into  Thy 
holiest  love  wherein  Thy  universe  becomes, 
Thy  children  flocking  all  these  happy  ways 
of  life.  In  giving  us  children,  we  enter 
through  the  gates  of  experience  into  Thy 
holy  and  tender  fatherhood,  and  know  how 
Thou  lovest;  how,  with  everlasting  faithful 
ness,  Thou  hast  devoted  Thyself  to  our 
eternal  well-being. 

So  give  we  Thee  thanks  for  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  who  has  enriched  us  in 
life ;  who  have  been  what  ennobles,  who 
have  said  what  purifies,  who  have  done  what 
gives  grace  and  greatness  unto  us.  Through 


Loving' 's  Perfect  Wing.  45 


these  we  love  Thee.  Through  them  Thou 
lovest  us.  In  faithful  kindness  to  them,  we 
serve  Thee  ;  in  their  faithfulness  and  kind 
ness,  Thou  servest  us.  Therefore  we  are  glad 
in  Thy  presence  for  Thy  love  that  is  divine 
and  human,  for  the  life  that  in  that  love  we 
are  living  increasingly  unto  becoming  Thy 
perfect  children. 


VII. 

THOU   LIFE   OF   EVERYTHING, 


47 


Thou  Life  of  Everything.  49 

THOU   LIFE  OF   EVERYTHING. 
I  can  become  but  what  Thou  art, 

Thou  life  of  everything  ; 
If  Thou  art  bird  with  beating  heart, 

Then  I  may  be  its  wing. 

When  Thou  art  some  sweet,  holy  voice, 

Then  I  may  be  its  tune  ; 
My  life  may  be  an  orchard  sweet 

When  Thou  wilt  be  its  June. 

All  that  Thou  art  I  may  become, 

If  Thou  be  what  I  am  ; 
Be  Thou  the  voice  that  singeth  me, 

And  I  will  be  the  psalm, 

Which  Thou  wilt  hear,  so  satisfied 

In  all  its  holy  words ; 
Each  note  will  fly  Thy  heart's  dear  sky 

Like  dawn-rejoicing  birds. 

Bring  forth  in  me  Thy  purest  love, 

Thy  wisest,  truest  thought ; 
Then  I,  Thy  heart's  ideal,  shall 

A  perfect  child  be  wrought ; 

Thy  fatherhood  at  deepest  joy 

In  all  my  quiet  bliss, 
And  peace  eternal  in  my  heart 

In  answer  to  Thy  kiss. 


50  Thou  Life  of  Everything. 


T^HOU  art,  O  Lord,  and  we  are  becom- 
*  ing  !  Thou  art  the  perfection  of  beauty. 
Thou  art  the  fulness  of  life.  What  comes 
forth  in  the  earth  comes  out  of  the  abundant 
multitude  of  Thy  wise  and  tender  thinkings. 
Thou  art  loving,  Thou  art  thinking,  and 
the  earth  about  us  is  and  the  heavens  above  ; 
and  we  are  here,  loving,  and  thinking,  and 
growing.  Thou  art  the  beautiful  cause  of 
us  ;  and  we  are  the  meaning  and  joy  of 
creation. 

Ours  are  the  ears  by  which  Thou  dost 
listen  to  the  wonderful  music  of  the  earth's 
busy  life.  Ours  are  the  eyes  by  which  Thou 
dost  behold  the  beauty  everywhere.  In  our 
hearts  Thou  dost  love,  in  our  brains  Thou 
dost  think.  In  us  Thy  creation  has  fulfil 
ment  and  meaning.  In  us  Thou  art  under 
stood,  appreciated,  delighted  in.  Thy 
meanings  in  the  earth  about  and  the  heavens 
above  are  for  us.  Thou  speakest  out  and  we 
hear.  Thou  Greatest  and  we  see.  Thou 
bringest  forth,  and  we  love  what  Thou  hast 
made  with  a  great  and  ever-deepening  joy. 
Thy  birds  have  their  appreciation  in  us. 
They  fly  their  meanings  in  our  souls.  Thy 
beasts,  Thy  fishes,  Thy  grasses  and  grains, 
the  earth's  countless  things  that  are  and  are 


Thou  Life  of  Everything.  5 1 

becoming,  are  saying  their  secrets  to  us,  are 
used  and  mastered  by  us  unto  a  greater  ful 
ness  of  this  growing  life  of  ours.  We  are 
Thy  living,  loving,  thinking  workmanship ; 
and  these  are  the  touches  with  which  Thou 
dost  fashion  us.  Through  these  is  Thy 
quickening  of  us.  Through  these  Thou 
dost  lay  great  necessities  upon  us,  whereby 
we  must  think  and  toil  and  grow.  Through 
these  Thou  dost  fascinate  us  into  a  great 
loving,  into  a  great  thinking,  into  a  great 
activity,  a  great  growth.  We  belong  to 
each  other.  We  complete  each  other.  We 
grow  together,  together  become  that  unto 
which  Thou  hast  made  us. 

In  the  sunbeam  is  red.  In  the  growing 
rose  is  its  revelation.  But  only  when  the 
rose  is  grown  to  its  blossom,  and  it  and  the 
sunbeam  become  one,  are  we  delighted  with 
this  dear  marvel  of  color.  So  in  Thy  earth 
there  are  many  things,  and  in  man  is  their 
revelation,  their  meaning,  their  use ;  but  only 
when  man  is  grown  up  to  the  point  at  which 
he  becomes  one  with  these  thoughts  of  Thy 
thinking,  do  we  behold  the  wonders  of  a 
great  civilization.  Thou  art  love,  but  only 
as  we  grow  loving  can  we  know  it,  can  we 
show  it.  Thou  art  truth,  but  only  as  we 


52  Thou  Life  of  Everything. 

become  truthful  can  we  know  it,  can  we 
show  it.  Thou  art  forgiveness,  but  only 
when  we  become  forgiving  can  we  know  it, 
can  we  show  it.  Thou  art  holiness,  but 
only  as  we  become  holy  can  we  know  it, 
can  we  show  it.  And  so  in  all  Thy  perfec 
tions,  only  as  we  become  what  Thou  art  can 
we  know  Thee,  can  we  reveal  Thee. 

And,  as  we  are  growing,  we  know  that 
these  graces  of  growth  in  Thee  are  infinite. 
When  love  comes  forth  in  us,  it  is  our  joy 
and  strength  to  know  that  in  Thee  it  is 
infinite.  When  holiness  sings  its  songs 
within  us,  in  Thee  we  know  that  it  is  in 
finite.  When  we  experience  any  beauty  and 
power,  in  Thee  we  know  that  it  is  infinite. 

Our  fondest  and  fairest  and  holiest  dreams 
in  Thee  are  awakings.  The  best  that  we 
think,  the  best  toward  which  we  aspire, 
the  best  that  we  know,  the  best  that  we  love, 
are  in  Thee  ever  true  and  abiding  ;  and  in 
us  they  are  becoming  as  true,  as  abiding,  for 
we  are  growing  up  in  Thy  image  and  like 
ness.  We  are  becoming  what  Thou  art. 
Thou  art  taking  us  in  the  beauty  of  Thyself, 
and,  when  we  awake  in  Thy  likeness,  we 
shall  be  satisfied,  and  Thou  delighting  Thy 
self  in  the  blossom  and  fruit  of  Thy  dream- 
creation  come  true. 


VIII. 
A  PERFECT  HARMONY. 


53 


A  Perfect  Harmony.  55 

A  PERFECT  HARMONY. 
Thou  art  a  perfect  harmony  ; 

Thy  universe  doth  sing; 
Creation  beats  its  journey  out 

Upon  a  happy  wing. 

But  I  a  discord  seem  to  be 

In  all  the  dear  refrain  ; 
Instead  of  answering  with  joy, 

I  answer  only  pain. 

O  fashion  me,  such  tuneless  reed, 

Unto  thy  blowing  breath  ; 
Then  play  on  me  Thy  spirit  airs, 

Enchanting  even  death, 

When  all  my  friends  will  hear  in  joy, 

And  each  one  better  be  ; 
And  every  throbbing  of  my  heart 

Be  gladness  unto  Thee. 


\  17  E  find  the  life  Thou  givest  us  to  live, 
*  »  our  Father,  gracious  beyond  telling. 
Being  is  just  gladness  ;  and  that  we  are  alive 
we  thank  Thee.  There  has  been  the  sadness, 
when  we  have  somehow  abused  Thy  life  and 
made  it  scant.  When  the  full  expression  of 
that  life  has  been  interfered  with,  there  is 


56  A  Perfect  Harmony. 

pain.  But  the  very  pain  is  that  life's  crying 
out  for  its  fulness,  that  so  we  may  be  at  the 
joy  of  Thine  own  heart's  great  beatings. 
When  the  heart  has  been  miserable,  we  have 
shut  thee  out  of  that  dear  companionship 
wherein  we  blend  unto  love's  perfect  fulness 
as  wind  and  throat  of  bird  making  their 
music.  When  the  conscience  is  an  aching 
nerve,  and  all  the  moral  nature  drooping 
unto  death,  it  is  Thy  protest  against  our 
self-destruction  ;  it  is  Thy  holiness  crying 
out  for  the  fellowship  of  that  beauty  of 
holiness  which  is  always  Thy  peace  passing 
understanding. 

And  so  we  have  found  life  good,  even 
when  pain  did  its  work,  whether  the  strange 
hands  of  working  Thy  will  were  laid  upon 
the  body,  heart,  or  conscience. 

Some  making  of  Thine  own  is  always  at 
its  work.  Thou  woundest  that  Thou  mightest 
make  alive  again  with  fuller  life.  Thou 
makest  us  miserable  that  we  may  come  into  a 
joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory.  It  is 
Thy  passioning  for  our  perfection  which 
makes  us  ache  in  all  our  shortcomings,  in  all 
our  sin  and  shame.  And  so  the  life  that  has 
slipped  away  from  us  was  in  every  way  good, 
though  our  eyes  were  too  often  blind  beyond 


A  Perfect  Harmony.  57 

our  seeing.  The  life  that  we  are  now  living 
is  a  blessed  life,  though  we  may  fail  to  feel 
it  so, — blessed  because  it  is  a  part  of  our 
becoming  Thy  perfected  children,  and  that 
means  an  everlasting  gladness  that  wearies 
not  in  all  its  singing. 

These  changes  that  sadden  us, — the  years 
that  fly  to  come  not  back  again,  the  vanished 
faces  that  return  no  more, — are,  too,  some 
graces  of  Thy  life  which  we  are  living,  the 
fuller  life  that  we  shall  enter  by-and-by. 
The  song  can  not  sing  itself  but  as  note 
after  note  fulfils  and  goes  into  silence.  Its 
very  becoming  is  a  passing  away.  Nor  can 
the  flower  bloom,  but  that  it  is  sad  change's 
graciousness.  Nor  can  the  sheep  bleat  in  the 
fields,  the  kine  low  in  the  meadows,  but  that 
change  is  at  its  work.  Nor  can  the  bird  be 
on  its  wing,  but  as  the  wing  and  wind,  at 
dearest  touchings  now,  must  part  as  fills  the 
flight  its  happy  measure  full.  Nor  can  it  sing 
those  rhapsodies  of  summer  days  but  as  the 
dear,  sad  change  is  there,  a  sanity  and  holi 
ness  ;  the  wind  and  throat  at  kissings  of 
companionship  must  part  before  the  rapture 
can  come  forth  to  fill  its  golden  measure  full 
and  pass.  So  change  guides  all  the  ways  of 
a  dear  child's  becoming  man,  and  saint,  and 


58  A  Perfect  Harmony. 

hero,  and  saving  presence  in  the  world.  So 
come  our  purest  loves,  our  holiest  thoughts, 
our  highest  aspirations,  our  achievements  of 
life  and  character. 

And  so,.  O  Lord,  we  see  Thee  gracious, 
not  alone  in  what  hurts  when  life  cries  out 
against  each  wound  that  strives  for  death, 
not  alone  in  that  the  sufferings  of  the  man 
show  Thy  dear  working  hands  upon  him, 
but,  as  well,  we  see  Thee  gracious  in  these 
changes  that  must  come.  Not  gracious 
simply  that  those  changes  come  which  lead 
from  sorrow  into  joy,  which  break  life's 
thread  and  end  the  sickness  all  too  long,  but 
gracious  in  those  changes  that  seem  sor- 
roward  from  joy — in  changing's  doom  that's 
on  us  every  hour,  in  every  heart-beat,  every 
thought.  By  change  is  life's  dear  manifest 
ing  in  our  heart.  Life's  stream  in  us  is  holy 
from  the  doom  of  death  because  it  hurries 
on,  and  pauses  not  in  all  its  joy. 

So  now  we  thank  Thee  for  the  days  that 
are  no  more,  the  days  that  are,  and  those 
that  are  to  come.  In  all  the  changes  Thou 
abidest,  Life  of  our  life  !  Our  glory  and  be 
coming  perfect  child  in  Thee  our  perfect 
Father,  is  by  the  grace  of  Thy  angel  of 
change,  O  Thou  beautiful,  divine,  and  ever- 
lasting  Love. 


IX. 
ABOVE  IT  ALL  GOD  IS, 


59 


Above  it  All  God  Is.  61 

ABOVE  IT  ALL  GOD  IS. 
My  failures  many  weaknesses 

Have  blended  to  create  ; 
My  love  is  other  love  than  mine, 

My  hate  is  other  hate. 

Some  growth  afar,  some  spinning  done, 

Has  fed  my  weary  loom  ; 
I  weave  the  shine  of  other  days  ; 

As  well,  I  weave  the  gloom. 

If  all  alone  I  work  for  blame, 

Or  for  some  word  of  praise, 
A  deepest  wrong  is  done  my  soul, 

Injustice  holds  my  ways. 

But  if,  above  it  all,  God  is 

A  weaver,  tender,  wise, 
I'll  weave  the  mystery  out  with  Him, 

Whatever  shuttle  flies, 

Assured  that  it  will  certain  be 

Some  glory  of  His  heart; 
I,  but  himself  wrought  beautiful 

Through  all  our  toiling  art. 


SO    much   of    graciousness   is   about   us, 
Master  of  Life,  that  we  are  glad  for  this 
home  of  the  earth  Thou  hast  given  unto  us. 
The  tender  and  true  life  Thou  art  living  for 


62  Above  it  All  God  Is. 

us  takes  countless  shapes  of  loveliness.  The 
very  food  Thou  givest  us  takes  the  eye  in 
beauty  and  fills  the  taste  with  delight,  like 
songs. 

But  yet,  that  these  things  of  beauty  and 
service  become,  there  is  Thy  perfect  life 
causing  them.  Entering  into  them  is  Thy 
truth,  Thy  goodness.  The  center  out  of 
which  they  unfold  is  reality  ;  the  life,  cloth 
ing  itself  in  their  forms,  genuine.  That 
life  may  shape  itself  to  its  services,  it  must 
be  itself  and  keep  true  to  itself.  Oak  life 
can  only  become  the  oak  as  it  abides  itself 
through  all  the  ways  of  its  becoming.  In 
the  egg  is  the  essential  thrush  that  upon  the 
winds  makes  brooks  of  melody  laugh 
through  all  the  sky.  In  the  center,  the  be 
ginning  of  growth,  the  reality  must  be  ;  or 
blossom,  fruit,  or  bird  can  not  be  a  soul  of 
joy  within  the  passing  hours. 

And  yet  must  this  genuine  life  that  hides 
in  what  to  us  is  faint  beginnings,  keep  faith 
ful  to  itself  and  to  its  work,  as  it,  in  answer 
to  the  wooings  of  the  sun,  reveals  the  hidings 
of  its  heart.  A  genuineness  of  being,  a  toil 
of  true  reality,  and  then  the  perfected  being, 
the  lovely  intent  of  Thy  heart  revealed. 

And  so,  dear  Maker  of  us,  at  Thy  tasks 


Above  it  All  God  Ts.  63 

of  the  everlasting  love,  we  too  become  the 
lovely  revealings  of  Thy  heart,  the  blessed 
children  showing  forth  Thy  deeps  of  Father 
hood.  Some  reality  of  Thyself  must  be  in 
us;  a  glow  of  true  love,  a  life  that  is  the 
child  Thy  purpose  means  us  to  become. 

The  oak  unfolds  from  within.  Were  it 
not  in  the  acorn,  it  could  not  be  upon  the 
hill.  Were  there  no  pulse  of  life  in  the 
prison-house  here,  there  could  be  no  laughter 
of  leaves  in  the  freedom  of  summer  winds 
yonder.  So,  indeed,  is  Thy  kingdom  of 
childhood  within  us,  or  it  cannot  be  un 
folded  in  a  life,  at  once  Thy  joy  and  great 
enrichment  of  the  world.  The  hidings  of 
Thy  purpose  are  the  beginnings  of  our  life. 
But  that  Thou  art  secret  in  our  beings,  we 
could  not  be  Thy  open  thought  of  man. 
What  Thou  hast  put  within  us,  that  we  must 
unfold.  To  other  than  that  we  can  not 
attain. 

And  yet,  as  we  are  at  our  growth,  there 
must  be  reality,  faithfulness  in  all  our  work 
which  is  a  part  of  our  becoming,  the  part 
we  most  may  shape,  and  in  it  have  some 
willing  of  our  own.  So  much  depends  upon 
our  toil  that  unfolds  Thy  hidings  unto  new 
revelations  of  ourselves.  So  much  can  enter 


Above  it  All  God  Is. 


in  to  mar ;  defeat  may  come  as  we  turn  out 
Thy  purposes  from  their  full  climbing  into 
bloom.  So  would  we  be  careful  of  that 
which  we  admit  into  our  feelings  to  become 
a  part  of  our  making.  We  would  be  careful 
about  what  we  admit  into  our  thoughts  to 
be  our  truth  or  our  falsehood.  We  would 
be  careful  about  what  we  admit  into  our 
purposes,  of  which  our  life  is  but  the  work 
ing  out.  We  would  be  careful  in  the  form 
ing  of  our  convictions,  for  these  are  our 
creator  in  their  image  and  likeness.  And 
having  true  thoughts,  pure  feelings,  lofty 
purposes,  holy  convictions,  we  would,  with 
patient  diligence,  work  them  out  into  our 
lives,  into  what  we  ourselves  are  becoming, 
so  that  we  may  indeed  become  our  own 
highest  ideals,  Thine  own  thought  of  a  child 
fulfilled  in  us. 

So,  O  Master  of  all  being,  will  our  inmost 
life  be  good  and  true,  and  its  form  shaped 
forth  be  a  very  great  delight  to  Thee,  to  our 
brothers, — we  some  beauty  of  Thine  own, 
some  holiness  of  Thy  true,  true  heart, — the 
hidings  of  Thy  grace  revealed  in  us,  Thy 
thought  of  child  made  plain  to  all,  some 
dear  reality  of  Thyself  at  blessing  in  our 
life. 


X. 

A  HUMAN  FACE. 


65 


A  Human  Face.  67 

A  HUMAN  FACE. 
Thou  needest,  Lord,  a  human  face 

To  smile  and  make  Thee  known  ; 
O  be  in  me  a  tenderness, 

That  smiling  face  mine  own. 

Thou  needest,  Lord,  a  human  tongue 

To  say  Thy  truth  divine  ; 
O  be  in  me  a  holy  thought, 

That  truthful  tongue  be  mine. 

Thou  needest,  Lord,  a  human  hand 
To  bind  man's  aching  wound ; 

O  be  in  me  compassion  sweet, 
That  hand  mine  own  be  found. 

Thou  needest,  Lord,  a  human  life 

To  live  Thee  out  on  earth  ; 
O  be  in  me  a  beating  heart, 

My  life  that  holy  worth. 

I'd  show  Thee,  Lord,  in  all  my  ways, 

In  all  I  am  and  do ; 
I'd  be  Thine  own  self  realized, 

Myself  divine  and  true. 

Abide  in  me,  live  out  in  me 

Thy  being's  perfect  bliss ; 
May  all  my  life  so  move  in  love 

That  I  be  Thy  dear  kiss, 


68  A  Human  Face. 

To  touch  with  life  and  love  divine 

Whom  evil  so  destroys, 
And  waken  through  their  night  of  death 

Life's  dawn  of  holy  joys. 


\  17E  bless  Thee,  Thou  Love  of  all,  for 
*  *  the  wonder  and  greatness  of  the 
human  face.  It  seems  the  meaning  and 
holiness  of  everything  that  is.  But  for  it 
bird  songs  and  flower  fragrances,  strength 
of  the  oaks  and  purple  of  the  hills,  beasts 
in  the  fields  and  fruits  on  the  vines,  skies, 
rain-falls,  oceans  —  all  would  fail  of  joy  and 
hallowedness. 

All  that  is,  grows  tender  and  full  of  holy 
meanings  in  a  human  face.  Thou,  the  in 
finite  Love  and  Holiness,  quenchest  Thy 
great  brightness  into  this  dear  gentleness 
that  is  my  baby  laughing  back  my  love,  my 
mother  giving  summer  sky  unto  my  life,  my 
friend  enlarging  me  into  a  world  divine. 
It  shows,  it  interprets  all  life.  All  moods, 
all  meanings  are  here.  Dawn  is  here,  with 
every  bird  awake  and  breath  of  flowers  on 
the  winds  ;  a  golden  shimmer  from  the  sun, 
a  silver  radiance  answering  from  the  dew. 
And  noon  is  here,  a  droop  on  blossoms  and 


A  Human  Face.  69 

on  leaves,  a  silence  of  the  birds  ;  in  vain  the 
kine  are  seeking  shade,  the  low  brook 
scarcely  wetting  pebbles'  thirst,  and  dust  at 
dreariness  on  all.  And  eve  is  here,  the 
shadows  long  and  gracious,  a  fall  of  dew, 
the  leaves  at  life  again,  the  birds  at  song, 
the  low  of  cattle  in  a  glad  content.  And 
night  is  here,  the  voice  of  whippoorwill 
abroad,  the  bat  at  dartings  for  its  prey,  star- 
beam  athwart  the  dusk,  the  moon  a  glory  in 
the  clouds  or  liquid  silver  laughing  on  the 
waves.  And  storm  is  here,  a  cloud,  a  fierce 
ness,  a  great,  destroying  wrath.  And  peace 
is  here,  a  holy  quiet,  as  when  babes  are  still 
in  sleep,  as  when  in  worship  the  voiceless 
heart  of  man  communes  with  the  voiceless 
spirit  of  all  life. 

O,  help  us  !  that  these  faces  of  our  own  be 
peace  and  joy  and  strength  and  sunny  sum 
mer  days  to  these  our  friends.  Be  they  for 
them  a  springtime  all  athrill  with  life.  Be 
they  a  June's  own  perfect  day ;  an  autumn 
splendor  of  ripeness  rich  in  satisfying  love. 
If  winter  comes,  when  hearts  and  minds 
must  be  at  sterner  duty,  let  them  be  yet 
some  inspiration,  a  new  thrill  in  the  air,  a 
tingling  sense  of  fuller  life ;  a  snow  for 
merrymaking,  and  for  enriching  grain,  that 


70  A  Human  Face. 

it  become  a  grace  that  feeds  our  hungering. 
May  we  feel  all  that  is  beauty,  and  shine  it 
in  our  faces.  May  we  feel  comforting  in 
grief,  tender,  holy,  and  give  it  countenance 
to  bless.  All  nobleness,  all  purity,  all  un 
selfish  love  that  does  and  dares  for  this  kind 
of  ours,  glow  in  our  hearts,  and  make  our 
faces  a  blessed  day  for  all  about  us  now.  Be 
truth  in  all  our  thought  that  so  its  splendors 
may  make  us  give  out  some  inspiration, 
helping  others  lead  a  truest  life.  Be  in  our 
being's  deeps  a  shekinah,  shaping  forth  Thy 
benedictions  in  faces  that  are  joy  and 
strength  of  holiness  to  all. 

And  for  these  holy  faces  blessing  us,  we 
give  Thee  praise.  Thou  art  so  beautiful, 
when  looking  out  from  Thy  fathomless  eter 
nities  through  some  dear  human  face,  that 
Thou  mayest  show  Thy  love  for  us,  that  we 
may  see  Thy  loveliness,  desiring  Thee.  O, 
Infinite  Tenderness  that  is  a  dear  babe's 
face  !  O,  Everlasting  Love,  becoming  a 
mother's  face,  to  sanctify  our  lives  !  O, 
Strength  Eternal,  showing  in  a  father's  face, 
that  we  in  nobleness  be  strong  !  Thyself 
art  here,  the  dear  wife's  face,  a  benediction 
hallowing  home  !  In  every  loving  human 
face  and  true,  there  is  Thy  countenance  for 


A  Human  Face.  71 

joy    and   blessing  lifted   upon  us,  that  we 
walk  in  light  and  be  at  home  with  Thee. 

Thou  art  a  human  heart,  a  human  face  ! 
We  are  Thy  children,  growing  more  child 
like,  our  Father's  grace  and  goodness  show 
ing  through,  until,  transfigured,  we  are  very 
like  Thyself,  heart  and  heart  at  one,  and 
every  pulse  of  life  but  holiness  and  joy. 


XI. 
LOVE  FASHIONS  EVERY  WING, 


73 


Love  Fashions  Every  Wing.  75 

LOVE  FASHIONS  EVERY  WING. 
In  joy  are  all  the  flowers'  roots, 

And  love  makes  everything ; 
'  Tis  love  glows  in  the  lowest  brutes 

And  fashions  every  wing. 

A  happy  heart  is  everywhere, 

A  loving  thought  in  all ; 
A  father  heart  beats  on  to  share 

Whatever  may  befall. 

In  me  it  gracious  doth  abide, 

Moves  with  my  pilgrimage  ; 
I  know,  if  it  were  selfish  pride, 

If  it  were  wicked  rage, 

The  birds  would  die,  the  flowers  blight, 

And  all  things  rot  in  graves  ; — 
The  sun  put  out,  eternal  night, 

Insanity  that  raves. 

But  birds  at  song  and  blooming  flowers 

And  beating  heart  of  mine, 
Each  thing  that  moves  in  life's  dear  powers 

Are  in  the  love  divine. 

So  fare  I  forth,  whatever  way 

May  call  my  growing  soul ; 
Through  all  the  changes  love  doth  stay, 

And  joy  laughs  through  the  whole. 


76  Love  Fashions  Every  Wing. 

NO  hate  holds  Thy  hidden  ways  in  Thy 
universe,  O  Lord  of  life.  Thou  art 
love.  Thy  secrets  are  the  glowings  of  a 
tender,  everlasting  love.  Thy  revealings 
are  the  graces  of  Thy  fatherhood  at  its  tasks 
of  fulfilment.  In  love  each  thing  roots,  in 
love  fulfils.  Life  everywhere  is  love  going 
forth  to  bless.  The  flowers  open  that  the 
hidden  graces  of  love  may  appear.  Birds 
fly  that  love's  graces  may  be  seen,  may  be 
heard.  Streams  are  love  at  its  laughter. 
The  oak  is  love  at  its  strength.  Mountains 
and  seas  are  love  at  its  powers  and  beauties. 
Grains  and  fruits  are  Thy  love  at  its  minis 
tries.  Thy  love's  gentleness  is  the  sheep ; 
Thy  love's  meekness,  the  kine  of  the  fields. 
Everywhere  the  hearts,  beating  out  their 
music  of  life,  are  in  tune  with  Thy  everlast 
ing  love.  In  spite  of  all  the  fears,  the 
tragedies  and  deaths,  life  is  sweet  in  all ;  and 
life  is  love. 

Each  life  is  a  hymn  of  gladness ;  and 
only  the  discord  that  haunts  its  singing  is 
pain,  and,  to  the  passing  thought,  the  fleet 
ing  experience,  defeat.  Secret  of  all  being 
is  love.  Hate  can  not  create.  Joy  is  the 
piping  to  which  all  the  walls  of  life's  fair 


Love  Fashions  Every  Wing.  77 

cities  rise.  Pain  is  but  a  pause  in  the  glad 
ness  of  becoming. 

In  this  faith,  that  Thou  art  indeed  a  ten 
der  Father  to  everything,  we  are  at  peace, 
and  hope  is  a  sun-filled  sky  in  which  we  can 
infinitely  grow.  In  men  Thou  art, — their 
secret,  their  revealing.  Each  little  child  is 
a  grace  of  Thine  own  heart  come  forth  to 
make  Thee  known,  to  lay  hold  of  us  with 
the  beauty  of  an  unselfish  love,  making  us 
partakers  of  Thine  own  nature.  Thy 
powers  about  us,  within  us,  are  creative. 

We  are  but  being  made.  Thou  art  be 
getting  us.  The  very  pangs  are  life's  becom 
ings  ;  and,  come,  what  a  satisfaction  of  soul 
in  an  enrichment  of  being,  in  some  new 
grace  and  power  from  Thee  !  That  which 
is  evil  is  no  such  alien  in  Thy  universe 
that  it  may  defeat  the  purpose  of  Thy 
love.  To  that  love  everything  must  some 
how  be  servant.  Deeper  than  all  deeps  are 
the  undefeated  gulfs  of  Thy  love.  Of  all 
Thou  art  the  gracious  master.  Thy  winters, 
with  all  their  seeming  death  and  blight, 
Thou  makest  to  enter  into  the  richness  of 
all  the  things  the  summer's  tenderness  calls 
forth.  Thy  storms,  so  dark,  so  seeming 


78  Love  Fashions  Every  Wing. 

full  of  wreck  and  waste,  Thou  makest 
to  do  Thy  works  of  purity,  cleansing  the 
winds,  renewing  life.  No  waste  is  any 
where.  No  useless  rubbish  is.  Change 
works  its  will  on  everything,  and  so  what's 
waste  becomes  transformed  into  some 
beauty,  some  service  in  all  life.  Upon  decay 
and  waste  no  change  makes  pause.  Its  dear 
intent  can  not  thus  be  fulfilled.  It  passes  on 
that  so  its  service  may  fulfil  in  some  new 
glory,  love  creative  still. 

So,  Lord,  behind  all  seemings  is  Thy  love's 
reality.  Within  all  evil  hides  some  good  of 
Thine  which  will  not  take  defeat,  but  at  its 
patient  waiting,  patient  tasks,  fulfils  Thy 
love's  intent,  reveals  Thy  fatherhood  at 
last. 

And  so  again  for  this  dear  truth  of  father 
hood  we  thank  Thee,  for  this  truth  of  ever 
lasting  love.  It  is  a  gladness  in  the  soul,  a 
confidence  for  faithfulness.  It  makes  us 
work  with  Thee  that  we  may  more  become 
Thy  truest  thought  of  child.  It  makes  us 
diligent  in  tasks  of  brother  love  that  we 
may  help  Thy  love  fulfil  itself  in  every  man. 
For  every  duty  hard  to  do  it  girds  us.  It  is 
holiness,  strength  in  all  our  convictions. 


Love  Fashions  Every  Wing.  79 

In  it  we  are  confident  that  our  ideals  shall 
become  a  very  part  of  us ;  that  Thy  ideals 
for  us  will  become  Thy  realities  within  us. 

And  so,  for  the  infinite  pity  that  answers 
the  infinite  pathos  of  life,  we  are  glad,  and 
find  a  holy  strength  to  hymn  in  every  hour, 
to  sing  for  every  man. 


XII. 
MAY  WE  BLESS  BACK  AGAIN, 


81 


May  We  Bless  Back  Again.  83 

MAY  WE  BLESS  BACK  AGAIN. 
As  faithful  nature  blesses  us 

May  we  bless  back  again, 
With  what  will  make  some  sweeter  strains 

Sing  in  her  dear  refrain. 

With  wisest  thought  upon  her  fields 

May  we  our  help  bestow, 
Till  rich  and  richer  harvestings 

Her  summer  toil  may  show. 

When  she  gives  flower  marvelings 

May  we,  with  knowing  hand, 
Be  fellow-worker,  that  she  may 

Make  finer  bless  the  land. 

May  we,  by  all  that  in  us  lies, 

Bless  her  with  faithful  thought, 
That  by  her  ever-growing  life 

Some  fuller  beauty's  wrought. 

And,  when  from  throes  of  patient  love 

Her  skies  with  dear  birds  fill, 
May  not  our  murder  bruise  her  heart, 

Her  singing  children  kill. 

When  they  have  hived  her  summer-love 

May  we  not  kill  her  bees, 
But  sacred  hold  such  patient  life, 

Such  holy  ministries. 


84  May  We  Bless  Back  Again. 

May  we  not  shame  our  gratitude 

And  ruthlessly  destroy 
A  single  tree  her  many  years 

Have  wrought  in  deepening  joy. 

May  we  through  beasts  she's  giving  us 
An  answering  kindness  give, 

Make  happier  for  each  of  them 
These  lives  which  now  they  live. 

May  we  be  thankful  for  her  skies, 
Her  mountains  and  her  seas, 

For  all  such  splendors  measureless 
Our  hearts  be  rhapsodies. 

In  all  her  life  which  we  must  live 

May  we  be  tenderness, 
That  powers  of  ours  and  powers  of  hers 

May  work  but  what  can  bless. 

And  so,  somehow,  we'll  bless  Thy  heart, 
From  whom  her  graces  spring  ; 

Thou  unto  us,  we  unto  Thee, 
In  all  her  kindness  sing. 


A17E  thank  Thee,  O  Lord,  for  an  earth  in 

'  V       which  Thy  growing  things  root,  for 

a  sky  in  which  they  grow  and  fruit.     We 

thank  Thee  for  this  change  and  becoming 


May  We  Bless  Back  Again.  85 

that  everywhere  we  see.  It  is  life,  and  life 
at  its  center  is  joy,  and  joy  is  always  satisfy 
ing,  and  is  each  thing's  enlarging  fulfilment. 
We  are  glad  to  be  of  the  earth  earthy,  to  have 
this  kinship  with  the  soil  and  the  beasts,  to 
have  these  lowly  duties  that  mean  the  body's 
care,  this  life  in  nature  which  is  as  the  very 
face  of  delight.  Our  dear  old  earth  is  ever 
beautiful.  We  love  its  lowly  beauties,  its 
lofty  grandeurs. 

That  Thou  hast  made  it  and  us  to  be  in  love 
and  at  joy  with  each  other,  we  thank  Thee. 
But  we  are  glad,  in  a  joy  hallowing  this  joy, 
that  we  are  of  the  heavens  heavenly  ;  that  we 
have  affections  and  thoughts  and  aspira 
tions  and  experiences  that  lift  above  our 
lowest  life,  like  a  sky  above  the  earth  ;  that 
we  have  a  thought  of  Thee,  a  love  for  Thee, 
an  experience  in  Thee,  Thou  perfect  love  and 
wisdom  out  of  which  all  things  have  come, 
beneath  whose  tender  face  they  fulfil  their 
holy  destinies.  In  our  beings'  deeps  we  are 
children  to  Thee.  Hallowing  our  earth-life 
and  making  it  but  soil  in  which  to  root,  we 
have  Thy  fatherhood,  a  growing  power  and 
beauty  within  us,  a  begetting  of  us  ever  into 
the  highest  in  Thy  universe.  We  are  more 
than  Thy  grass,  that  in  lowly  grandeur  makes 


86  May  We  Bless  Back  Again. 

the  earth  alive  ;  more  than  Thy  beasts  that 
walk  the  earth  \  than  Thy  birds  that  fly  the 
air.  They  live  their  life  in  just  the  joy  of  it. 
They  can  not  know  Thee,  the  happy  Center 
and  Giver  of  their  blessed  life.  We  have 
the  lowly  grandeur  of  the  grass,  the  larger 
life  of  Thy  beasts,  and  the  heart-beats  that 
fly  with  wing  and  song  that  we  have  named 
the  birds.  But,  more  than  this  we  have, — a 
thought  of  Thee,  a  love  for  Thee,  a  holy  of 
holies  in  which  Thou  art  at  one  with  us  in 
dearest  fellowship,  when  in  Thee  we  have  the 
Life  of  all  life  as  ours,  the  Love  of  all  love, 
the  Joy  of  all  joy,  the  tender  Eternity  that 
lieth  in  all  the  time  making  it,  the  beating 
of  a  Heart  whose  greatness  sets  everything  at 
growth  and  becoming,  gives  grace  of  life  to 
every  little  heart  that  beats  out  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  life.  We  root  in  the  earth,  and 
are  glad  for  all  its  ministries,  its  fellowships 
of  life  and  love  ;  we  blossom  in  Thee,  and, 
beyond  telling,  are  at  joy  in  that  great  and 
divine  life  which  in  Thee  we  have. 

And  help  us,  Lord,  to  see  the  large  and 
everlasting  meanings  in  this  fact,  that  we 
have  a  life  of  the  earth  in  nature  and  a  life 
of  the  heavens  in  Thee.  Our  life  means  that 
we  are  to  bring  heaven  to  earth,  to  fulfil  the 


May  We  Bless  Back  Again.  87 

highest  in  the  lowest.  The  earth  is  a  fulfil 
ment  of  the  sun.  The  sky,  with  its  winds 
and  warmth,  its  rainfalls  and  dew  gentle 
ness,  has  fulfilment  and  realization  in  every 
thing  that  grows, — in  lichen  on  walls  and 
oaks  on  mountain  sides,  in  mice  of  the  field 
and  lions  of  the  jungle,  in  wing  of  gnat  and 
poise  of  mighty  eagle.  And  so  Thou  art  ful 
filled  in  us.  We  are  Thyself  becoming.  And 
our  duty  and  diligence  ever  is  to  bring  Thee 
forth  in  all  our  life;  and  doing  this  is  eternal 
life.  Help  us,  then,  from  the  righteous 
ness  we  know  and  do,  to  see  the  loftier 
that  may,  that  ought  to  be  done.  Always 
may  ideal  life  be  ours.  Always  may  that 
ideal  life  be  being  realized  by  us  in  lowliest 
duties,  in  humblest  joys.  Ever  be  we  seeing 
a  truer  way  to  live  ;  ever  be  we  living  in 
Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  May  we  fulfil  in  all 
our  duties  and  gladnesses  the  same  faithful 
ness  and  love  in  which  Thou  dost  make  the 
worlds  and  keep  them  to  their  happy  paths 
of  service.  Then  what  Thou  art  we  will  be 
always  becoming,  and  Thou  in  us  will  be 
seeing  Thyself  to  love  Thyself,  and  yet  from 
self-loving  be  blessedly  free.  When  Thou 


88  May  We  Bless  Back  Again. 

in  us  and  we  in  Thee  are  fulfilled,  then 
cometh  to  its  full  Thy  glory  of  fatherhood 
and  our  beauty  of  childhood. 


XIII. 
WHEN  SURE  OF  THEE. 


When  Sure  of  Thee.  91 

WHEN  SURE  OF  THEE. 
When  sure  of  Thee,  O  Love  Divine, 

I'm  sure  of  everything  ; 
Thou'rt  holy,  laughing  certainty 

Which  I  can  endless  sing. 

When  Thou  art  mine,  let  outer  life 
Bring  what  may  heal  or  rend  ; 

Secure  I'll  rest  in  Thee,  my  Peace, 
And  all  my  troubles  end. 

Yea  ;  know  that  in  them  hideth  deep 

Some  blossom  yet  to  blow  ; 
In  newer  springtime  tenderness, 

Thy  perfect  kindness  show. 

Be  Thou  my  secret  resting-place 

When  days  with  trouble  fill  ; 
Be  Shepherd  holy  leading  me  ; 

Be  pastures  green  and  still. 

I  then  will  be  but  beauty  that 

Fulfils  Thy  tenderness, 
And  know  that  Thou  not  only  mine, 

But  I  Thy  being  bless. 


OLORD  of  all  being  !     Thou  art  all  in 
all  !      Naught  is  but  that  Thou  hast 
made  it.     It  is  some  going  forth  of  Thy 
wisdom,    some    fashioning   of    Thy    love. 


92  When  Sure  of  Thee. 

Though  to  our  eye  it  may  seem  a  scar,  a 
tangled  tarn  where  death  lurks  with  hideous 
forms  that  but  make  mock  at  life,  still  it  is  the 
servant  of  Thy  wisdom,  the  drudge  of  Thy 
perfect  love.  The  touch  of  Thy  making  is 
upon  everything.  And  the  finished  work  of 
all  shall  in  its  splendid  beauty  praise  ever 
Thy  loving  kindness  and  tender  mercies. 

Out  of  Thy  heart  have  we  come.  Not 
straight  out  of  Thy  heart's  burning  deeps, 
but  by  Thy  wisest  indirection.  From  out 
the  heart  of  the  great  sun  comes  the  daisy 
whose  smile  so  tender  greets  the  glowing 
dawn.  Not  straight  out  of  the  burning 
deeps  of  the  sun  came  it,  but  by  indirection 
of  the  clouds  and  soils  and  winds  and  rains 
and  the  great  line  of  ancestral  daisies.  But 
still,  out  of  the  sun's  central  deeps  is  it 
fashioned  fair.  And  so  we  come.  By  what 
long  ways  we  know  not.  By  clouds  of  sin, 
by  circumstance  of  race,  by  touch  of  clime, 
by  large  and  sad  heredity.  But  yet  from 
out  Thy  fatherhood  we  come,  and  could  not 
be  but  that  Thou  lovest  constantly  with 
perfect  love  these  beings  of  ours  which  are 
but  parts  of  Thine. 

And  so,  O  Lord,  on  Thee  each  breath 
depends.  Each  heart-beat  is  a  pulse  of 


When  Sure  of  Thee.  93 

Thine.  Each  humble  life  of  ours  is  not 
dropped  wholly  from  Thy  wisdom.  As  on 
we  go  in  sin  and  suffering,  in  this  freedom 
of  ours  so  nobly  used  or  so  basely  abused, 
we  go  on  beneath  Thy  tender  gaze.  We 
move  about  in  Thy  perfect  watch-care.  We 
are  never  beyond  the  reach  of  Thy  hand, 
that  determines  still  to  make  us  become 
something  worthy  of  Thy  love  ;  something 
that  in  all  its  fine  and  finished  lines  shall 
show  forth  the  beauty  of  Thy  wisdom. 

May  this  great  faith  give  us  the  courage 
of  our  convictions,  that  we  may  speak  them 
forth  for  Thee  and  do  that  for  which  to 
us  they  are  intrusted.  May  it  open  our 
souls  wide  that  Thou  mayest  enter,  mak 
ing  us  true  in  Thy  truth,  wise  in  Thy  wis 
dom,  loving  in  Thy  love,  faithful  in  Thy 
faithfulness  ;  a  busy,  gentle  servant  to  all  our 
brothers  here  in  Thy  servanthood  that  joys 
to  fashion  the  wing  of  a  gnat  and  the  heart 
of  Thy  Christ,  that  each  may  help  to  fulfil 
Thee  in  Thy  great  work  of  creation  which 
is  being  done.  May  it  make  all  life  sacred 
to  us  and  joyous.  May  it  give  its  large  and 
holy  meanings  to  all  about  us.  May  it  fulfil 
in  us  all  the  blessed  Christ-dreams  of  brother 
hood.  May  it  make  for  us  these  death 


94  When  Sure  of  Thee. 

darknesses  to  be  but  the  shadows  of  Thy 
gracious  dawns  of  fuller  life.  May  it  bring 
Thee  "  behind  our  ears  and  eyes,"  until  all 
life  shall  lie  before  us  in  the  holiness  of  Thy 
love,  in  the  gladness  of  Thy  wisdom,  which 
sees  the  growing  work  that  in  its  finished 
glory  shall  make  a  finer  holiness  in  place  of 
every  sin,  a  sunnier  smile  for  every  sadness, 
a  dearer  love  in  place  of  every  hatred,  a  fuller 
peace  for  every  strife,  a  brighter  life  for 
every  death,  a  heavenlier  heaven  for  all  the 
darkness  of  this  little  earth. 

When  life  is  now  conscious  of  Thee,  its 
source  and  sustenance,  how  inexpressibly 
glad  and  holy  it  is  !  Into  this  dear  con 
sciousness  bring  us  more  and  more,  and 
Thy  heart  will  joy  toward  its  fulfilment  in 
us,  and  ours  in  growing  holiness  be  so  satis 
fied. 


XIV. 
BEAUTIES  EVERYWHERE, 


95 


Beauties  Everywhere.  97 


BEAUTIES  EVERYWHERE. 
O  Lord,  such  beauties  everywhere 

Enchant  the  happy  earth, 
We  wonder  what  Thy  beauty  is 

Which  gives  to  each  its  birth. 

What  melody  must  be  Thy  Tieart 

To  sing  these  flying  birds ; 
What  thoughts  sublime  Thy  thinking  makes 

To  speak  such  winged  words. 

What  loveliness  must  be  Thy  dream 

That  makes  the  flowers  grow  ; 
What  infinite  unselfishness 

The  purpling  autumns  show. 

What  peace-enrapturing  gentleness 

Outjoying  in  the  sheep  ! 
We  can  but  trust  a  love  like  this 

Our  hidden  ways  to  keep. 

What  holiness  of  perfect  life 

Whence  happy  childhood  springs  ; 

Sure  we  can  trust  its  unseen  deeps 
When  death  a  shadow  brings. 

We  worship  Thee  in  this  we  see 

So  lovely  everywhere, 
But  hunger  deepest  to  become 

In  spirit  beauties  fair. 
G 


Beauties  Everywhere. 


Oh,  fashion  forth  Thy  holy  deeps 
Until  we  are  like  Thee  ; 

Till  we  to  Thee  and  Thou  to  us 
Eternal  beauty  be. 

So  will  our  lives  atune  and  sing 
Thy  being's  lovely  calm, 

With  everything  of  earth  a  note, 
Ourselves  the  holy  psalm. 


OECRET  of  my  life,  I  would  find  Thee, 
^  that  I  may  prove  my  gratitude  for  the 
grace  Thou  givest,  that  Thy  more  abundant 
fulness  may  be  mine.  Father,  who  hast  be 
gotten  me,  I  would  look  upon  Thy  face,  I 
would  hold  sweet  converse  with  Thee,  I 
would  enter  into  the  fuller  glory  of  Thy 
love.  I  would  realize  that  I  am  one  with 
Thee  in  holiness,  one  with  Thee  in  truthful 
ness,  one  with  Thee  in  love,  one  with  Thee 
in  Thy  pure  spirit  of  service,  one  with  Thee 
in  Thy  creative  joy,  ever  making  anew.  I 
would  know  that  Thou  art  but  begetting 
me,  that  in  Thy  heart's  deeps  there  is  the 
true  thought  of  me,  Thy  divine  ideal  of  a 
child  whose  wondrous  fulness  I  shall  be 
come. 


Beauties  Everywhere.  99 

Unquiet  is  about  me,  within  me  ;  trouble 
is  tossing  my  life  everywhere  about.  I 
would  be  taken  into  Thy  great  peace,  I 
would  be  in  Thy  holy  quiet,  as  sheep  whom 
gentle  shepherds  lead  into  green  pastures. 
Surely  our  longing  desires  for  better,  fuller, 
holier  life,  is  echo  of  Thy  desire  for  a  per 
fected  childhood,  in  which  Thou  canst  sat 
isfy  Thy  great  and  gracious  heart.  Let, 
therefore,  the  desire  of  Thy  heart  be  fulfilled 
in  us.  Thy  heavenly  thought  think  in  us  ; 
Thy  heavenly  affection  love  in  us ;  Thy 
heavenly  gladness  sing  in  us  ;  Thy  heavenly 
life  live  in  us  ;  Thy  heavenly  truth  reign  in 
us ;  Thy  heavenly  service  serve  in  us,  until 
shall  be  realized  the  desire  of  our  hearts  so 
often  prayed  to  Thee,  Thy  kingdom  come, 
Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven. 

Surely  Thou  art  coming  to  us  always, 
when  we  know  it  not,  think  it  not.  Thou 
hast  come  to  us  in  the  blessed  Christ,  a  dear 
and  holy  joy,  an  inspiration  in  life,  a  new- 
creation  in  love,  a  presence  hallowing  the 
very  winds  with  heavenliness,  a  vision  of 
Thee,  deep  and  satisfying.  In  Him  we 
learn  that  Thou  art  altogether  a  part  of  our 
human  life,  that  in  Thee  is  the  source  and 


100  Beauties  Everywhere. 

fulness  of  our  humanity,  that  Thou  art  our 
Father  dwelling  in  all,  that  we  are  brethren. 
In  Him  we  learn  the  holiness  of  brother- 
love,  the  divineness  of  brother-service.  If 
for  all  He  has  done  for  us  we  would  do 
some  answering  deed  of  love,  He  has  taught 
us  that  such  deed  is  done  to  Him  when  done 
to  any  of  our  unfortunate  and  needy 
brothers.  He  whose  deeps  were  Thy  pres 
ence  with  us,  taught  us  how  Thou  art  in  all 
to  bear  its  pain,  to  bless  us  as  we  minister 
unto  Thee  who  art  secret  in  every  one  of 
our  human  kind  to  receive  what  ministry  we 
may  give. 

Thou  art  in  all  a  dear  human  presence. 
Passioning  for  the  purification  and  happi 
ness  of  man,  we  are  passioning  for  Thee. 
Finding  our  brother  in  some  newness  of  life, 
as  we  live  for  his  blessing,  is  finding  Thee. 
As  through  the  door  of  service  we  go  out 
from  ourselves,  we  enter  into  the  temple  of 
Thy  gladness  and  become  partakers  of  Thy 
great  life.  Every  door  of  lowly  doing  for 
the  good  of  others  is  the  entrance  through 
which  Thou  dost  come  with  growing  fulness 
of  Thy  life,  and  we  become  more  truly  Thy 
children. 

Grant  unto  us  to  know  by  an  ever-grow- 


Beauties  Everywhere.  101 

ing  experience  that  inward  communion 
with  Thee  deepens,  sweetens,  as  outward  ser 
vice  for  our  brother  increases.  In  service 
for  our  kind  are  deepest,  truest  visions  of 
Thee.  In  a  self-forgetting  doing  of  what 
deed  we  may  to  bless  our  kind,  there  is  ever 
our  perfecting  in  Thy  thought  of  us,  in  Thy 
fatherhood  to  us.  Grant  unto  us,  therefore, 
this  wisdom  also,  the  wisdom  of  the  tender, 
busy,  serving  hand  ;  and,  with  it,  this  joy 
of  Thy  presence  more  and  more  realized  in 
transfiguring  communings  with  Thee,  Thou 
Father  of  our  never-dying  spirits,  of  our 
glorious  childhood,  deepening  ever  in  Thy 
grace  of  life. 


XV. 

A    MULTITUDE    OF    TENDER 
THOUGHTS. 


103 


A  Multitude  of  Tender  Thoughts.       105 

A  MULTITUDE  OF  TENDER  THOUGHTS. 
The  thrush  drinks  the  grace  of  Thy  streams, 

And  turns  all  its  thirst  into  songs  ; 

Each  leaf  takes  the  kiss  of  Thy  winds, 

And  the  joy  into  music  prolongs. 

The  rain  sings  itself  to  the  earth, 

The  earth  ballads  back  with  its  Junes  ; 

Thy  hand  never  touches  the  fields, 
But  they  blossom  with  life's  holy  tunes. 

Thy  sun  in  its  tenderness  smiles, 
Enchanting  the  quivering  vines, 

When  they  sing  in  their  murmurous  leaves, 
And  blush  into  sweetest  of  wines. 

My  heart  alone  seems  to  be  dumb, 

For  Thy  goodness  no  gratitude  shows; 

Yet  Thy  loving  keeps  on  at  its  songs, 
Thy  creation  with  kindness  o'erflows. 

O,  would  that  my  love  answered  Thine, 
As  the  thrush  with  the  dew  on  its  wings  ; 

Then  would  I  be  gladness  to  Thee, 
My  life  a  pure  rapture  that  sings. 


DEAR  Lord,  who  art  our  gracious  Father, 
we  thank  Thee  that  Thou  givest  unto 
us,     everywhere,    a    multitude    of    tender 


106      A  Multitude  of  Tender  Thoughts. 

thoughts.  Without  us  they  are  in  everything 
that  is;  within  us,  in  these  thinkings  of  ours, 
which  make  us  Thy  sane  and  free  children, 
knowing  and  doing  without  the  compulsion 
of  thoughtless  and  heartless  fate. 

But  we  most  rejoice  that  Thy  thoughts  in 
us  and  about  us  are  not  lifeless  thoughts. 
Death  that  is  anything  but  change  is  not  in 
all  their  ways.  They  are  aglow  with  life, 
and  love  is  in  all  their  becoming.  For  little 
whiles  they  rest,  they  sleep,  but  only  to 
awaken  in  newer  days  of  diligent  endeavor. 
But  not  a  thing  of  Thy  creation  is  that  lies 
inactive  in  some  endless  death.  All  is  in 
motion,  all  at  some  dear  deed  of  service,  as 
Thou  dost  make  Thy  universe  become  some 
dearer  fulness  of  Thine  own  most  loving 
thought,  a  happier  breath  of  Thine  own 
great  tender  life.  Everything  is  somehow 
servant  unto  life,  and  only  has  fulfilment  of 
itself  in  life. 

And  so  with  us.  Not  knowledge  stored, 
as  grain  in  useless  garners,  but  knowledge 
lived,  as  grain  at  growth  of  harvests,  at 
loving  task  of  satisfying  hunger's  need,  is 
knowledge  deepening  ever  into  life  within 
us,  widening  ever  in  a  life  that  blesses  man, 
and  making  place  for  Thee,  in  joy  of  Thy 


A  Multitude  of  Tender  Thoughts.      107 

becoming  something  holier  yet,  in  all  Thy 
world.  So  help  us  to  be  alive  in  Thy  great 
life,  our  knowledge  always  serving  life  ;  our 
life  at  happy  searchings  after  deeper  knowl 
edge  ;  our  wisdom  all  aglow  with  love,  our 
love  most  sane  in  wisdom,  that,  in  nothing, 
lets  unguided  impulse  wreck  the  very 
beauty  of  its  fine  intent. 

At  love  in  largeness  of  Thy  love  that 
seeks  the  good  of  all,  we  will  ever  grow  in 
knowledge,  each  growth  a  pulse  of  joy.  At 
wisdom  in  Thine  own  truth,  we  will  ever 
deepen  into  love,  and  know  that  life  is  all  that 
is,  and  we  its  beating  gracious  heart.  So 
may  we,  by  Thy  presence  all  alive  in  us, 
turn  all  our  knowledge  into  life,  make  it,  as 
seeds  their  deeds  of  blossom  and  of  fruit, 
do  in  the  world  the  kindness  and  the 
righteousness  men  need.  And  each  affection 
that  we  have,  may  we  inform  by  highest 
knowledge,  that  it  be  not  lawless  hurt  instead 
of  help. 

No  flower  is  a  blind  impulse  of  gentleness. 
That  glow  of  love,  that  is  its  deepest  cause 
and  meaning,  is  wrought  out  by  careful  law, 
by  order  wise ;  itself  not  only  love,  but 
order,  beautiful.  And  so  this  love  of  ours 
be  wisely  lived,  go  forth  in  orderliness  that 
it  may  really  bless,  its  deed  a  holiness. 


108      A  Multitude  of  Tender  Thoughts. 


So  will  our  place  in  Thy  great  universe 
be  filled.  So  will  our  sorrows  turn  to  joy. 
So  will  what  seems  our  mean inglessn ess  and 
Thine,  be  large  with  satisfying  purpose. 
So  will  Thyself  and  the  eternal  life  be  real, 
— no  thing  of  dreams,  no  thing  of  dead 
authorities,  but  thing  of  great  experience, 
that  knows  because  it  does,  and  does  be 
cause  it  knows,  the  living  will  in  which  we 
but  abide  and  change  unto  an  everlasting 
growth.  So  will  the  earth  be  beautiful,  its 
sad  sincerity  but  working  out  the  holy  deeds 
that  must  become  a  joy  within  Thy  joy, 
forever  and  forever  more.  So  truly  will  we 
know  Thee  in  Thy  heaven,  and  all  right 
with  the  world.  So  truly  will  we  help  on 
the  world's  becoming  a  kinder,  juster,  hap 
pier  world. 


XVI. 
MY  BROTHER'S  FACE. 


109 


My  Brothers  Face.  Ill 

MY  BROTHER'S  FACE. 
God  dwells  within  the  stars,  I  know, 

To  glorify  the  night ; 
And  in  the  birds  that  spread  their  wings 

In  singing's  dear  delight. 
He  shows  himself  in  lilies  fair, 

Breathes  blessings  in  their  breath  ; 
He  speaks  in  every  voice  of  life, 

Grows  silent  in  each  death. 

And  yet  my  heart,  in  finding  Him 

The  life  and  grace  of  these, 
Aches  still,  as  when  no  flowers  bloom 

For  honey-hungry  bees. 
Their  changing  life  so  beautiful 

Leaves  love  a-hungering  still ; 
My  life  a  weary  loneliness 

Their  friendship  can  not  fill. 

But  now  I  see  my  brother's  face, 

And  know  God  dwelleth  there, 
Though  wet  sometimes  with  bitter  tears, 

And  sometimes  smiling  fair. 
He  is  my  hunger  satisfied, 

My  dear  companionship ; 
God  breaks  the  lonely  silences 

With  a  dear  human  lip. 

And  now  the  stars  but  brighter  shine, 

And  sweeter  sing  the  birds, 
And  fairer  all  the  lilies  are 

In  saying  holy  words  ; 


My  Brother's  Face. 


For  the  dear  life  that  lives  in  them 
Is  dearer  brother-grace  ; 

The  whole  great  universe  in  man, 
A  tender,  human  face. 


T^vEAR  Lord  who  lovest,  we  are  Thy  love 
•*-^  and  righteousness  unto  men.  Thy 
sky  is  bountiful,  Thy  earth  •  with  plenty 
teeming  ;  but  we  must  be  Thy  co-workers, 
if  these  are  to  fufil  Thy  perfect  intent. 
The  soil  that  feeds  its  countless  millions 
will  hold  a  starving  babe  upon  its  vastness 
lifting  mountains,  upon  its  minuteness  fash 
ioning  grassblades,  and  never  pity,  never 
flow  a  bit  of  gracious  nourishment  to  answer 
all  the  wailing  cry.  Some  tender  human 
love  must  find  the  babe,  and  human  ministry 
complete  the  work  of  soils. 

There  is  power  in  the  winds  and  waves, 
giants  of  steam  and  electricity  all  about,  but 
man  must  come  in  and  think  out  their  se 
crets,  capturing  their  strength  that  so  they 
may  do  their  great  tasks  for  us.  There  is 
truth  everywhere,  in  everything,  but  we 
must  think  it  out,  we  must  call  it  forth,  we 
must  make  it  alive  in  our  service,  enlarging 
ever  in  our  lives.  There  is  love  about  us  in 


My  Brother's  Face.  1 1 3 

everything,  some  life  at  graciousness,  some 
ministry  with  ever  ready  unselfishness,  but 
we  must  find  it,  help  it  love  and  minister. 

The  soil  must  have  the  seed  to  reveal  its 
hidden  beauties,  to  bring  it  forth  in  grains 
and  fruits  to  bless  the  hunger  of  us  all. 
Even  the  sun  must  have  the  seed  that  it  may 
fulfil  itself,  its  unseen  glories  revealed  in  all 
the  growing  things  of  earth.  So  this  great 
earth  about  us  needs  the  man,  that  it  may 
become  its  higher  self,  that  it  may  work  out 
its  perfect  graces,  blessing  all.  And  all  our 
life  is  unto  this  one  great  end,  the  helping 
nature  to  its  blossoms  and  its  fruits  that  min 
ister  unto  the  growing  race,  in  food  for 
bodies,  minds,  and  souls, — a  grace  and  gen 
tleness  forever  making  great. 

So  this  great  heaven  above,  this  Father  of 
the  universe,  all  tender  and  all  true,  needs 
man  to  be  His  interpreter  unto  man ;  to 
bring  forth  all  His  hidden  truth,  a  glory  to 
the  eyes  of  men  ;  to  manifest  His  unseen 
love  that  it  may  have  a  human  face  and 
hands,  through  which  its  human  heart  may 
show  those  powers  forth  which  all  men  need, 
that  grace  of  kindness  in  which  comes  life's 
great  meanings  and  its  joys  that  never  end. 
And  all  our  life  is  this,  to  think  Thee,  feel 
H 


114  My  Brother's  Face. 

Thee,  say  Thee,  live  Thee  out  in  lives  that 
hallow  and  make  great. 

So  be  it  that  nature's  powers  we  master 
may  beat  service  to  our  kind,  all  knowledge 
shaping  to  some  deed  that  helps.  So  may 
our  music  be  made,  for  what  it  may  of  glad 
ness  give  to  these  our  fellows'  in  the  joy  of 
life.  So  be  it  that  our  business  be  not  sim 
ply  unto  gatherings  for  ourselves,  but  unto 
scatterings  that  increase  for  all  the  worth  of 
life.  So  be  it  that  our  thoughts  of  Thee, 
our  deepest  feelings  of  Thy  dwelling  deep 
and  gracious  in  our  hearts,  be  but  for  lead 
ing  these  our  weaker  brothers  up  these 
heights  of  holiness  and  joy  and  the  eternal 
life. 

As  our  faces  are  turned  outward  from  our 
selves  that  they  may  be  for  others,  so  may 
all  life,  all  love,  all  thought,  be  away  from 
ourselves  for  all  these  of  our  race  whom  we 
in  any  way  may  bless  with  this  great  higher 
life.  As  violets  and  oaks  do  show  the  sun 
in  what  may  bless,  so  be  in  us  a  grace  and 
greatness  of  Thyself,  that  we  may  think 
Thy  tender  thoughts  toward  all  Thy  chil 
dren,  and  so  show  Thee  forth  that  they  shall 
know  Thou  art,  and  they  in  Thee  some  dear 
eternal  life.  We  are  the  blessing  of  each 


My  Brother's  Face.  115 

human  need.  O,  grant  us  that  we  bless ; 
and  so  Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be 
done,  on  earth  so  low  as  in  Thy  heavens 
high. 


XVII. 

THAT  WE  MAY  THY  BEAUTY 
BEHOLD. 


117 


That  We  May  Thy  Beauty  Behold.     119 

THAT  WE  MAY  THY  BEAUTY  BEHOLD. 

Thou  comest  forth  in  the  rose, 
That  we  may  Thy  beauty  behold  ; 

And  in  every  harvest  Thou  art, 
Thy  goodness  its  bountiful  gold. 

Thou  comest  forth  in  the  birds, 

That  we  may  their  joyancing  hear  ; 

We  lift  unto  Thee  on  their  wings, 

In  their  songs  answer  cheering  with  cheer. 

Thou  comest  forth  in  the  kine, 

That  gentleness  be  to  us  charm  ; 
In  doves  Thou  appearest,  to  say, 

Creation  is  meaning  no  harm. 

Thyself  art  in  beautiful  June, 

In  the  autumn's  yellow  and  red, 
That  our  hunger  for  beauty  as  well 

As  our  bodies  be  bountiful  fed. 

No  thing  but  is  living  in  thee, 
And  showing  Thee  forth  to  the  wise ; 

As  Thy  holiness  cleanses  our  hearts, 
Thy  beauty  gladdens  our  eyes. 

As  Thou  comest  forth  in  each  thing, 

Be  beauty  within  us  that  grows, 
Until  every  deed  of  our  lives 

The  truth  of  Thy  loving  but  shows. 


120      That  We  May  Thy  Beauty  Behold. 

Each  thing  we  behold  but  a  door 
By  which  we  may  enter  to  Thee, 

And  worship  in  perfecting  love 

Through  the  truth  and  the  beauty  we  see. 

The  rose  and  the  grain  and  the  kine, 
The  bird  that  Thy  rapturing  sings, 

Somehow  but  the  breath  of  Thy  love 
That  to  lost  ones  a  homing  wind  brings. 

Each  thing  but  a  deed  Thou  dost  do 
In  these  secrets  and  deeps  of  our  loves, 

That  Thy  beautiful  heart  may  appear 

In  our  thoughts,  as  in  summer  Thy  doves. 

That  we  be  a  perfecting  soul 

To  reveal  Thy  humanity's  deeps, 

Forever  our  nature's  a  life 
Which  Thy  beauty  of  holiness  keeps. 


A17HAT  Thou  art  in  the  deeps  of  Thy 
'  *  being,  O  Lord  of  life,  we  do  not 
know.  What  Thou  art  revealed  in  Thy 
creation,  we  are  learning  in  many  a  poor 
and  pained  endeavor.  We  learn  that  Thy 
way  of  making  things  is  the  slow  and 
patient  one  of  growth.  Through  the  count 
less  centuries  this  earth  came  to  be  what  it 


That  We  May  Thy  Beauty  Behold.     121 

now  is.  By  ways  of  struggle,  suffering,  and 
defeat,  Thine  earth  was  chiseled  to  its  form, 
and  its  life  unfolded  in  endless  processions. 
Through  an  infinite  pathos  of  endeavor  man 
has  become  what  he  is.  And  that  he  may 
hold  what  he  has,  that  he  may  grow  into  the 
realization  of  ideals  that  beckon  as  the  blue 
indefinite  sky  above,  there  must  be  a  con 
stant  struggle,  suffering,  undefeated  en 
deavor. 

So  it  is  that  Thou  art  coming  forth  in  a 
race  of  men  that  we  trust  will  more  and 
more  show  Thee  as  a  Father  of  perfect  truth 
and  justice  and  love.  With  all  the  bounties 
Thou  dost  give  in  Thy  creation,  Thy  chil 
dren  of  men  must  work  out  in  a  great  and 
patient  toil  the  fruits  of  that  bounty.  With 
all  these  infinitely  varied  and  exhaustless 
powers  in  the  nature  about  us,  the  human 
nature  within  us,  we  must  co-operate, 
mingling  with  them  our  thought  and  toil,  and 
so  attain  unto  the  growth  of  becoming  what 
we  are.  For  the  countless  ones  who  have 
thought  and  toiled  and  suffered,  giving 
themselves  unto  the  growth  of  our  race,  we 
thank  Thee,  holding  them  in  some  tender 
and  grateful  thought.  For  the  known  ones 
who  have  made  our  history  great,  enriching 


122      That  We  May  Thy  Beauty  Behold. 

our  life  to-day,  we  thank  Thee,  holding 
them  also  in  tender  and  grateful  thought. 
That  Thou  dost  come  to  us  in  the  great  and 
good  men  of  our  race,  giving  us  in  them 
glimpses  of  Thy  deepest  and  truest  self,  we 
thank  Thee,  and  are  glad  that  Thy  beauty 
of  holiness  is  what  they  show  it  to  be, 
though  transcending  all  that  they  are  or 
suggest  to  our  fervid  imaginings.  We  thank 
Thee  for  the  great  movements  that  have 
led  in  grander  eras  of  thought  and  life  and 
endeavor  for  the  children  of  men. 

For  these,  and  the  men  who  were  its  em 
bodiments,  blessing  us  with  enlarged  life, 
kindling  our  imaginations  with  npble  ideals 
of  life,  giving  us  courage  and  inspiration, 
we  give  Thee  a  grateful  thought,  and  ask 
that  we  may  be  worthy  of  all  that  has  been 
done :  that  by  the  accomplished,  and  the 
spirits  of  those  who  achieved,  we  may  be 
consecrated  to  do  our  part  in  life  with 
faithfulness  and  enthusiasm,  leaving  this  race 
of  ours  ennobled  by  our  lives  when  we  pass 
away  to  live  out  otherwheres  this  life  of  Thine 
of  which  Thou  hast  strangely  made  us  par 
takers. 

In  ourselves  we  may  realize  all  nobleness, 
having  true  thoughts,  pure  affections,  ideals 


That  We  May  Thy  Beauty  Behold.     123 

and  endeavors  that  shall  make  our  conscious 
life  the  temple  of  Thine  indwelling,  a  center 
of  revealing  Thyself  as  a  Father,  holy, 
tender,  true.  May  we  live  out  righteous 
ness  and  brotherly  love,  becoming  a  factor 
in  the  world's  highest  and  holiest  growth. 
Keep  us  from  self-service.  May  we  be  no 
parasites  that  take  what  is  precious  in  our 
day  and  generation,  giving  nothing  in  re 
turn.  May  every  good  cause  have  our  word 
for  its  help,  our  work  for  its  triumph. 

And  may  opposition  not  overpower  us, 
nor  difficulties  discourage.  May  we  have 
every  bravery  in  the  right  as  Thou  givest  us 
to  see  the  right.  If  we  go  down  in  failure, 
may  we  go  down  with  our  flag  still  flying  its 
truth  and  love  from  the  topmost  mast.  May 
our  guns  speak  until  the  waters  of  death 
silence  them  forever. 

For  so  Thy  kingdom  comes  and  the  doing 
of  Thy  will  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in 
Heaven. 


XVIII. 
THE   CHRIST   IS  BORN, 


125 


The  Christ  is  Born.  127 

THE  CHRIST  IS  BORN. 
The  Christ  is  born,  when  kindness  done 

Makes  hearts  in  joyance  beat, 
The  light  of  heaven  streaming  down, 

The  winds  with  angels  sweet. 

When  thoughts  are  gentle  like  the  sheep, 

And  gracious  like  the  kine, 
The  dear  Christ-child  is  cradled  there, 

His  baby  face  a-shine. 

Where  life  is  lived  unselfishly, 

A  hand  that  open  gives, 
The  humble  shepherds  always  know 

That  Christ  is  born  and  lives. 

Where  life  is  poured  out  lavishly 

In  passioning  for  men, 
The  wise  men  with  their  treasures  are, 

And  Christ  is  born  again. 

Where  thought  is  true  and  life  is  pure, 

And  goodness,  dear  delight, 
The  Christ  is  come  and  glory  shines 

Through  every  winter  night. 

O,  not  afar  is  Bethlehem, 

In  ages  long  ago, 
But  here  and  now  may  every  heart 

Its  Christmas  glories  know. 


128  The  Christ  is  Born. 


My  heart  I  open,  Lord,  to  Thee, 
My  life  would  give  Thee  place  ; 

O,  break  my  selfish  silences, 
And  show  Thy  baby  face. 

Then  Thou  wilt  hallow  all  my  home, 

A  grace  that  never  dies, 
Our  hearts  through  every  grief  that  comes 

To  dearer  gladness  rise. 


OUT  of  Thy  deepest  tenderness  Thou 
hast  given  us,  Our  Father,  the  Christ- 
child.  We  are  glad  therefor,  in  many  a 
gracious  nobleness,  in  many  a  holy  largeness 
of  life.  We  are  happy  in  the  thought  of 
the  dear  mother,  in  her  blessed  experience, 
on  that  first  Christmas  night  so  long  ago. 
We  are  glad  for  the  dawn  of  holy  love  that 
shone  so  quietly  across  the  world's  selfish 
and  cruel  darkness.  What  a  thought  of  Thy 
love  came  to  us  then  !  What  a  reality  of 
Thy  Fatherhood  !  How  Thou  hast  been, 
since  then,  not  apart  from  us  the  stern  judge, 
but  within  us  the  loving  Father;  not  a 
power  indifferent  working  upon  us,  but  a 
thoughtful,  gentle,  holy  life  within  us.  Thou 
hast,  through  that  little  baby,  become  to  us, 
not  simply  a  nature  power,  but  a  dear  hu- 


The  Christ  is  Born.  129 

inanity,  our  human -heartedness  out  of  Thee 
coming,  in  Thee  abiding,  in  Thee  becom 
ing  a  holier,  happier  reality. 

With  this  great  truth  of  Thy  tenderest  in 
dwelling,  all  life  about  us  lies  hallowed,  and 
has  some  dearer  meanings  of  Thyself.  The 
life  that  lives  in  beast  and  bird  is  some  dear 
tenderness  of  Thine  at  its  unselfish  work ; 
the  blossom  but  some  beauty  of  Thyself; 
the  grains  and  fruits  Thy  comings  forth  in 
kindness  for  the  care  of  men  ;  the  earth 
some  ministry  of  Thine  as  Thou  art  perfect 
ing  the  children  of  Thy  father-love. 

And  what  a  dawn  of  brotherhood  is  here 
in  this  dear  baby's  face  !  How  consecrate 
is  man  to  every  pulse  of  love  !  Not  now 
may  we  hate  our  fellows,  not  now  do  them 
any  hurt,  not  now  be  indifferent  to  their 
woes,  not  now  be  content  with  anything 
short  of  helping  them  each  and  all  become 
the  highest  possible.  Now  find  we,  Thou 
in  them,  to  love  Thee  and  to  serve.  Now 
fold  we  the  weary  wings  of  a  vain  searching, 
if  we  may  find  Thee,  in  this  dear  busy  field 
of  brotherhood,  and  lo !  here  Thou  art  to 
many  a  fine  degree;  here  beauty,  love,  and 
service  ;  here  need  that  we  may  minister 
unto  Thee  who  dost  unfailing  do  so  mtfch 
I 


130  The  Christ  is  Born. 

for  us.  Just  to  find  this  truth  and  love  and 
purity  of  man,  these  holiest  men,  these  pur 
est  women,  is  just  to  find  Thyself,  and  know 
what  Thou  art  infinitely  in  all  Thy  worlds. 
To  be  at  work  among  the  lowly  and  the 
failing,  to  help  them  with  some  inspiration, 
some  uplift  throughout  all  their  life,  why 
this  is  at  Thy  secret  that  doth  sing  the  birds 
and  make  the  flowers  beautiful,  the  holy 
babes  such  rapturing  beauty  to  our  eyes,  the 
joy  Thou  hast  in  serving  everywhere,  Thy 
dear  delight  in  creating  children  that  they 
may  come  at  last  to  be  the  glory  of  Thy 
perfect  heart.  What  honor  is  to  us,  that  we 
may  be  co-workers  with  Thyself  in  making 
Thy  thought  of  children  be  fulfilled  through 
all  this  joy  and  sorrow  of  the  humankind, 
this  sin  and  holiness  of  men  ! 

For  all  the  blessed  Christ  has  been  and  is 
to  us,  we  praise  Thee  at  this  Christmas  time. 
For  all  he  is  in  us,  for  all  he  is  becoming  in  us 
and  in  all,  we  give  Thee  adoration  from  our 
deepest,  truest  hearts.  Our  hearts  now  sing 
a  rapture  far  above  the  sweetest  songs  of 
birds  in  this  new  holiness  of  motherhood. 
Thou  art  incarnate  in  our  babes.  In  them 
we  hold  some  holiness  of  Thine.  They  are 
some  beauty  of  Thy  love  for  us.  They  are 


The  Christ  is  Born.  \  31 

some  coming  of  Thine  own  to  bless  us  with 
Thyself,  to  lead  us  forth  into  that  great  un 
selfishness  of  Thine  by  which  Thou  hast  a 
joy  eternal  as  Thou  dost  live  Thy  life  for  all 
who  are  and  all  who  are  becoming. 

O,  dear  Christ-child,  born  yet  again  in 
our  dear  babes,  we  give  Thee  love,  born  in 
our  hearts  we  give  Thee  welcome,  and  the 
dear  grace  Thou  givest  holds  our  hearts  and 
all  our  thoughts  and  words  and  lives  in  some 
strong,  tender  kindness  for  each  thing  alive, 
in  the  gentleness  that  makes  our  brother 
great. 


XIX. 
BY  GRACIOUS  CHANGING, 


133 


By  Gracious  Changing.  135 

BY  GRACIOUS  CHANGING. 
By  gracious  changing,  Lord,  Thy  birds 

Their  music  sweet  are  making, 
But  that  life  passeth  in  their  notes 

No  songs  the  winds  were  taking. 

Thou  art  at  change  within  the  flowers, 

Their  fragrance's  outpouring, 
And  so  from  seeds  and  soils  and  dews 

Thou  winnest  sweet  adoring. 

Thy  doom  of  change  makes  autumn's  vines, 
Be  garnered  summer's  treasures, 

Their  fruits  but  changing  glorified 
In  all  their  rapturing  pleasures. 

By  change  Thou  makest  babes  be  saints, 

With  lives  so  purifying, 
The  tender  women  and  brave  men, 

A  comfort  for  earth's  sighing. 

Change  is  Thy  grace  by  which  we  grow 

In  every  thought  and  feeling, 
The  worth  of  manhood  gaining  still, 

Thy  truer  life  revealing. 

This  grace  Thou  givest  everything, 

Its  present,  future  glory, 
No  thing  without  such  graciousness 

Could  tell  its  full,  sweet  story. 


136  By  Gracious  Changing. 

And  so  we  praise  Thee  through  our  smiles, 
And  when  our  tears  are  falling, 

That  change  is  just  Thine  own  sweet  voice 
To  holier  childhood  calling. 

We  bless  Thee  for  so  dear  a  bird 
That  never  stops  its  winging  ; 

But  on  through  every  kind  of  sky 
Our  destiny  is  singing. 

Dear,  gracious  dawn-voice,  lead  us  on, 
Thy  song  our  fate  is  holding  ; 

Our  perfect  sainthood  yet  a  peace 
Wherein  thy  wings  are  folding. 


/""CHANGE  is  upon  us.  The  stream  flows 
^—  '  by  and  never  returns.  Out  into  the 
world  our  beloved  ones  go  ;  we  may  see  them 
again,  but  the  dear  spell  of  the  olden  day 
comes  no  more  ;  something  is  gone  forever. 
Streams  turn  not  backward  and  find  the 
hills  again,  not  even  the  stream  of  our  lives. 
Banks  once  kissed,  kissed  no  more  forever  ; 
pebbles  once  laughed  over,  laughed  over  no 
more  forever  ;  the  mill-wheel  once  turned, 
turned  no  more  forever.  On  and  still  on, 
ever  a  losing  and  a  finding  are  these  lives  we 
live.  Shadows  fall,  and  through  them  into  the 


By  Gracious  Changing.  137 

light  some  dear  one  goes,  never  returning 
from  the  beauty  of  the  unseen  sun. 

And  yet  in  the  midst  of  .all  these  changes 
is  one  dear  eternity,  a  spring  that  flows  and 
sings  in  the  desert's  heart,  that  dries  not  up 
for  all  the  scorching  sands  ;  this  dear,  this 
holy  memory  that  keeps  our  past  a  happy  pres 
ent  in  the  midst  of  every  change.  In  count 
ing  our  blessings,  that  we  may  grow  happy 
unto  gratitude,  we  count  a  dearest  one  this 
memory,  that  holds  so  sacred  all  our  past ; 
that  makes  us,  for  our  help,  relive  the  days 
gone  by ;  its  laughter  laugh  again  ;  its  tears 
reweep,  and  all  its  faces  framed  in  hallowed 
days  shine  on  us  like  bright  stars  at  night, 
and  like  the  glow  of  dawns  with  dews  on 
the  grass  and  birds  on  the  waking  winds. 
We  thank  Thee  that  so  Thou  givest  our 
lives  a  unity,  an  aid  to  growth  and  greatness, 
a  meaning  saving  it  from  loss  that  hides  no 
gain,  the  secret  of  its  heart  come  forth  as 
seeds  decaying  reveal  the  blossoms  hiding 
in  their  deeps.  So  knowledge  abides  as 
fishes  in  the  sea,  as  gold  in  rocks,  to  yield 
a  food  to  wisdom,  a  worth  to  life.  So  have 
we  from  many  fields  and  flocks  a  gathering 
for  each  distaff  to  spin  our  thoughts,  our 
purposes,  and  weave  them  in  the  web  of  life. 


138  By  Gracious  Changing. 

There  is  much  we  would  forget  because 
remembrance  of  it  is  a  pain,  a  discord  steal 
ing  into  the  strings  of  life  and  spoiling  its 
sweet  tune.  And  yet  such  things  do  make 
us  wiser  than  we  think,  the  aching  saving  us 
from  foolishness,  the  memory  holding  us 
from  multiplying  folly  until  we  are  that 
shame  of  life,  a  fool  that  never  learns.  The 
prodigal  at  home  joys  never  in  his  shame 
which  memory  keeps  so  near;  and  yet  it 
is  such  nearness  of  his  shame  that  hallows 
home,  even  as  clouds  spin  from  the  sunbeams 
the  beauties  of  the  rainbow.  Indeed,  as 
colors  come  by  help  of  the  black  which 
breaks  the  sunbeams'  glories  into  revelations 
of  themselves,  so  these  dark  things  of 
memory  make  the  white  holiness  of  God 
break  through  our  lives  in  colors  of  all  pure 
feeling  and  true  thought.  So  even  for 
memory  that  brings  back  the  days  of  dread, 
the  experiences  in  old  evils,  we  thank  Thee. 

But,  for  the  dear  bright  days  that  come 
again  by  grace  of  memory,  we  give  Thee 
hearty  thanks.  These  holy  faces  we  have 
lost,  the  veil  of  death  so  sadly  falling  over 
them,  how  blessed  that  they  come  again  and 
yet  again  as  memory  does  its  gracious  work, 
lives  out  in  us  its  blessed  life,  its  deed,  Thy 


By  Gracious  Changing.  139 

mercy  set  it  unto,  done.  We  are  glad  that, 
in  losing  so  much  we  love,  we  have  not, 
as  well,  lost  the  blessed  memory,  that  sweet 
eternity  in  which  our  beloved  all  abide  and 
live  again  for  us  their  dear  old  holy  life. 

So,  Thinker  of  us,  Soul  in  whom  we  live, 
we  bless  Thee  for  this  dear  grace  of  memory, 
this  help  to  the  meaning  and  fulfilment  of 
our  lives,  this  continuity  of  being  making 
all  our  life  of  some  great  worth. 


XX. 

NOT  FAR  AWAY, 


141 


Not  Far  Away.  143 

NOT  FAR  AWAY. 
Not  far  away  where  journey  vast 

And  weary  must  be  trod, 
In  unseen  stars  or  ancient  days 

Thou  dwellest,  Father-God. 

But  in  the  grain  that's  daily  bread, 

In  hunger  satisfied, 
In  my  heart's  threnodies  and  glees, 

O  God,  Thou  dost  abide. 

I  find  Thee  in  all  life  that  is 
To  think  Thy  thought  of  man, 

And  not  a  thing  of  earth  but  fits 
That  tender  thinking  plan. 

My  being's  deeps  Thy  hidings  are, 
To  make  my  shallows  clear  ; 

Within  that  shaping  word,  myself, 
Thy  voice  of  truth  I  hear. 

So  not  afar  I  journey  forth 
To  find  my  Lord's  dear  face, 

But  in  and  in  my  own  deep  soul, 
For  there's  His  dwelling  place  ; 

Wherein  He's  ever  home  to  me 

With  purifying  kiss, 
I  taking  childhood's  joy  in  Him, 

He  taking  Father  bliss. 


144  Not  Far  Away. 


WE  are  glad,  our  Father,  that  Thou  dost 
always  give  us  a  sky  in  which  to 
grow ;  in  that  sky  a  sunshine  that  feeds  us 
for  oiir  blossom  ;  a  dew  becoming  our  fra 
grance  ;  an  air  enwrapping  us  around  with 
its  eternal  presence.  We  have  the  thought 
of  Thee,  an  infinite  goodness  into  whose 
image  and  likeness  it  is  destiny  to  grow. 
We  have  the  thought  of  Thy  universe,  its 
countless  truths,  its  graces  and  powers,  never 
weary,  never  failing.  What  high  companion 
ships  with  these  we  have  !  How  they  make 
us  great  in  feeling,  in  thought,  in  outlook, 
in  aspiration  !  Then  here  are  our  brothers 
in  the  strange  mystery  of  life.  They  bless 
us.  They  give  meaning  and  enlargement  to 
our  lives.  And  so  we  are  not  the  animals 
of  a  day.  We  are  the  children  of  the  cen 
turies.  We  own  the  sun  and  stars,  the 
splendid  hearts  of  the  ages,  the  heroic  lives 
of  the  centuries. 

And  this  so  priceless  heritage  which  Thou 
hast  given  us,  we  would  use  as  being  worthy 
of  it ;  we  would  increase,  in  a  worth  appre 
ciative  of  Thee,  who  hast  given  us  of  Thine 
own  life,  who  hast  made  us  partakers  of 
Thine  own  nature.  From  low  aims  we 
would  be  delivered;  from  low  thoughts; 


Not  Far  Away.  145 

from  affections  that  are  of  the  earth  earthy. 
We  would   dignify  the  lowest  service  with 
the  highest  spirit,  even  as  Thou  dost  make 
Thyself  faithful  in  fashioning  gnat's  wings 
or    Shakespeare's    brain,    or    the    blessed 
Christ's  heart.     So  to   the   least  work,  the 
greatest,  we  must  do,  we  would  always  bring 
the  divinest  spirit,  beautifying  it  with  faith 
fulness,  and  thereby  enter  into  the  secrets 
of  Thy  being,  realizing  our  sonship  to  Thee. 
And  yet  we  would  not  be  content  with 
small  duties.   Even  the  trivialties  which  faith 
fully  done  make  great,  we  would  not  have 
engage  our  attention  so  as  to  exclude  the 
high  things  of  life,  the  great   themes,  the 
lofty  duties.     Our  roots  we  would  have  toil 
diligent  in  the  soil,  but  as  well  our  leaves  we 
would  have  rejoice  in  the  winds,  weaving  the 
sunbeams   in   a  happy  faithfulness   into  all 
this  that  becomes  the  grace  and  substance 
of  our  being.     We  would  aspire  to  become 
some  glory  above  the  ground,  some  perfect 
ing  oak,  some  flower  yearning  to  give  its 
blossom  to  the  sun.     It  is  in  these  higher 
things  that  we  know  our  own  meanings  to 
fulfil  them.     It  is  by  discourse  upon  these 
highest  themes  that  our  brother  is  revealed 
to  us  in  his  richness,  that  we  grow  together 
J 


146  Not  Far  Away. 

fulfilling  the  divine  intent.  So  would  we 
hold  together  the  fellowship  of  highest 
thought,  of  noblest  feeling,  of  splendid, 
heroic  action.  In  such  fellowship  the  low 
is  transfigured,  becoming  blossom  and  fruit. 
Not  so  touched  with  transfiguring  friendship, 
it  is  like  dust  upon  the  winds,  when  it  might 
be  soil  in  the  glory  of  the  clover  filling 
honey-cups  for  bees. 

There  is  a  great  peace  in  such  fellowship. 
No  thing  can  be  at  peace  but  as  it  is  becom 
ing  Thy  thought  of  it.  Fulfilling  the  divine 
impulse  of  destiny,  there  is  a  satisfaction  for 
all  travail  of  soul.  So  are  we  grateful  for 
books,  for  art,  for  music,  for  church,  and 
home,  and  all  these  noble  and  ennobling 
fellowships  with  one  another  by  which  life 
becomes  Thy  fuller  meanings  and  we  Thy 
dearer,  truer  children. 

May  we  keep  all  these  fellowships  of  earth 
in  the  heavenliness  of  these  diviner  themes 
and  thoughts.  May  we  grow  together  in 
the  sky  Thou  hast  given  us,  that  in  it  we 
may  be  enlarged  and  blessed  by  its  winds 
and  suns  and  falling  dews.  So  will  we  be 
come  in  Thee,  and  Thou  in  us,  the  fuller, 
tenderer,  holier  meaning  of  Thy  Father 
hood. 


XXI. 
ALL  WINGS  THAT  FLY, 


147 


All  Wings  that  Fly.  149 

ALL  WINGS  THAT  FLY. 
No  bird  there  is  but  that  it  wings 

Its  flight  in  love  divine ; 
Love  makes  the  winds  on  which  it  sings, 

The  wings  for  flyings  fine. 

Love  wove  it  in  its  little  nest, 

And  in  its  song  appears  ; 
That  same  love  glowing  in  my  breast 

Through  me  its  rapture  hears. 

Within,  without,  all  wings  that  fly, 

Take  being  from  Thy  love  ; 
No  flight  anear,  afar  they  try, 

But  Thou'rt  beneath,  above. 

O,  beating  heart !     O,  throbbing  brain  ! 

O,  blessed  life  that  lives  ! 
All  earth's  fulfilments  but  refrain 

Thy  perfect  loving  gives. 

O,  truth  that  fills  my  heart  with  peace ! 

A  joy  through  all  my  days, 
My  destiny  but  love's  increase 

As  sing  Thy  endless  lays. 

Dear  Lord,  indeed  for  faith  like  this 

My  truest  love  is  Thine  ; 
Through  earth's  each  changing,  holy  bliss 

Thou  more  and  more  art  mine. 


150  All  Wings  that  Fly. 

Until  I  have  Thee  perfectly 
In  joys  that  never  die, 

Thou,  wind  eternal,  bearing  me, 
Thou,  wings  with  which  I  fly. 


THY  love  to  us  takes  many  a  beautiful 
shape.  It  comes  to  us  a  bird  enchant 
ing  with  itself,  its  song,  its  flight.  It  comes 
to  us  in  the  sheep,  making  the  pastures  al 
most  human.  It  comes  to  us  in  the  flowers, 
until  we  wonder  how  beautiful  Thou  must 
be  out  of  whose  heart  comes  the  endless  pro 
cession  of  the  blossoms.  It  comes  to  us  in 
the  harvests,  laughing  out  our  hunger,  giv 
ing  us  so  much  help  in  thinking  about  Thy 
exhaustless  kindness.  It  comes  to  us  in  the 
rills  that  are  like  truth's  pleasant  thoughts 
that  never  fail  of  refreshing.  Now  it  is  a 
falling  rain,  and  now  a  sunset.  Now  it  is 
a  sea,  and  now  a  mountain  empurpled  with 
an  infinite  tenderness. 

And,  as  Thou  art  taking  hold  of  us  through 
these,  we  are  wrought  into  some  strength 
and  beauty  to  mate  and  sing  with  them  our 
anthem  of  praise  for  Thy  beauty  of  holiness 
making  everywhere  such  dear  shadows  of  it 
self. 


All  Wings  that  Fly.  151 

But  the  dear  human  shape  of  Thy  love  is 
holiest.  How  it  enraptures,  coming  to  us  a 
little  child  !  How  it  hallows,  coming  to  us 
a  holy  mother  !  How  it  strengthens,  coming 
to  us  a  wise  father  !  How  it  is  gentleness 
making  great,  in  an  unselfish  sister  !  How  it 
is  a  spirit  ennobling,  in  a  manly  brother ! 
How  it  enlarges  as  it  comes  a  procession  of 
friends  ever  multiplying !  It  is  the  wife 
making  home  holy;  the  husband,  making 
it  a  safe  dwelling  place.  Now  it  is  some 
book  born  through  a  human  heart  to  up 
lift,  giving  us  new  soils,  new  skies  in  which 
to  grow.  It  is  the  song  of  the  poet,  the 
story  of  the  novelist,  the  life  of  the  biogra 
pher,  the  past  living  over  again  by  the 
faithfulness  of  the  historian,  the  meanings 
of  things  growing  clear  in  the  patient  work 
of  the  scientist.  Now  it  is  art, — a  canvas 
like  Thy  creation  of  a  field,  a  marble  seem 
ing  to  breathe  as  though  its  beauty  and 
strength  were  flesh  and  blood,  a  building 
that  takes  the  morning  sun  with  an  anthem 
of  stone  singing  to  the  eye. 

So  comes  Thy  love  in  countless  ways  ever 
beautiful.  And  so  does  it  take  hold  of  us, 
transforming  us  into  a  new  and  growing 
life,  as  we  answer  Thee  love  for  love.  Only 


152  All  Wings  that  Fly. 

so  can  we  attain  unto  fulness  of  life.  Holi 
ness  grows  beautiful  with  a  beauty  we  passion 
to  be  like  when  it  is  a  tender  woman  or  true 
man,  when  it  is  the  sweet  child  that  moves  a 
grace  of  life  through  the  home.  In  the  pres 
ence  of  some  royal  human  soul  we  can  not 
be  selfish,  but  are  like  trees  in  the  presence 
of  the  all-gracious  sun  who  can  not  abide  in 
themselves,  but  must  push  out  their  heart's 
treasures  into  blossom  and  fruit,  that  the 
winds  may  be  enriched,  that  man's  hunger 
for  beauty  and  for  bread  may  be  satisfied. 
These  splendid  great  souls  which  help  us  to 
think  of  Thee,  which  realize  Thee  to  us, 
charm  us  into  thought  and  speech  and  ac 
tion  that  become  the  nourishment  of  beau 
tiful,  full  life  in  those  over  whom  we  have 
an  influence.  It  is  good  men  and  pure  wo 
men  that  make  in  the  world  that  passioning 
holiness  that — 

"  Hunts  the  tiger  of  oppression  out 
From  office  ;  and  spreads  the  divine  faith 
Like  calming  oil  on  all  the  stormy  creeds, 
And  fills  the  hollows  between  wave  and  wave  ; 
Nurses  Thy  children  on  the  milk  of  truth, 
And  alchemizes  old  hates  into  the  gold  of  love." 

That  Thou  givest  Thyself  unto  us  through 
them  we  thank  Thee.     That  we,  becoming 


All  Wings  that  Fly.  153 

like  them,  may  give  Thee  a  grace  of  saving 
nobleness,  unto  all  our  fellows,  we  bless  Thy 
holy  name.  In  them,  in  us,  in  all,  be  Thy 
life  at  an  everlasting  increase  of  humanity 
until  we  shall  realize  that  Thy  doing  is  but 
Thy  humanity  at  its  full. 


XXII. 
DREAMS  AND  WAKINGS. 


155 


Dreams  and  Wakings.  157 

DREAMS  AND  WAKINGS. 
Thy  dreams  become  Thy  wakings,  Lord, 

In  everything  we  see  ; 
Thou  hadst  a  dream  that  clover  is, 

Another  that  is  bee. 

Thou  hadst  a  dream  of  happy  songs 

Each  one  with  wings  to  fly  ; 
That  dream  awoke  in  countless  birds, 

And  in  the  tender  sky. 

Thy  dreaming  wakens  in  the  grass, 

And  in  the  giant  oak  ; 
It  seemed  to  whisper  out  the  flowers, 

And  then  the  lambs  it  spoke. 

In  every  life  Thou  happy  art, 
As  when  our  dreams  come  true  ; 

No  little  heart  beats  out  Thy  joys 
But  from  Thy  dreaming  grew. 

Thy  deepest  heart  a  dreaming  has 

Of  perfect  child  to  be ; 
Thou  drawest  near  in  tenderness 

That  it  awake  in  me. 

It  will  come  true  ;  I  shall  become 

Thy  truest  dream  awake ; 
Thy  fullest,  holiest  thought  of  child 

Shall  all  my  being  take. 


158  Dreams  and  Wakings. 

And  that  this  be,  O  grant  me,  Lord, 

Experience  like  Thine, 
That  all  my  noblest  dreamings  may 

Awake  in  life  of  mine. 

That  my  dream-clover  and  its  bee, 

My  grass  and  birds  and  sky, 
My  child  and  oak,  my  flowers  and  lambs, 

Awake  and  live  and  fly. 

Myself  some  happy,  holy  earth, 

Some  heaven's  tender  glow, 
All  new,  divine,  such  holiness 

As  Thy  dear  beauties  show. 

Then  Thou  wilt  be  the  holy  dream, 

And  I  Thyself  come  true  ; 
Thyself  come  forth  in  all  my  life 

Like  suns  in  violets  blue. 

Each  other  so  we'll  satisfy, 

And  endless  pleasure  take, 
To  know  our  holiest  dreamings  in 

Each  other  come  awake. 


OTANDING  in  the  presence  of  death,  we 
^  thank  Thee,  O  Lord,  for  the  faith  that 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  life  ;  for  Thou  art 
life,  and  Thou  art  every  where.  What  seems 
is  not  the  real.  It  is  but  the  shadow  that 


Dreams  and  Wakings.  159 

the  real  doth  cast.  Clouds,  be  they  deepest 
that  have  ever  gloomed,  have  in  themselves 
no  reality  ;  and  somehow  even  the  light  is 
their  maker,  and  the  light  not  very  far  off. 

So  of  this  shadow  of  death.  In  itself  it 
is  not.  No  substance  has  it,  no  reality. 
Thou,  the  All-living,  art  not  afar.  It  is  but 
the  show  of  some  change  Thou  art  making 
in  Thine  own,  calling  them  into  greater  ful 
ness  of  life. 

The  chrysalis  we  see,  empty,  dead,  no  life 
at  all  within  its  once  so  life-enhallowed 
walls.  Does  it  say  that  Thou  has  forgotten 
to  be  gracious  ?  Does  it  sigh  out  that  we 
are  not  in  the  presence  of  life,  but  where 
death  holds  a  sway  supreme?  Then  look 
we  yonder,  and  lo  !  a  winged  beauty  gracing 
flowers  and  putting  glory  in  the  sinless  air ; 
and  not  where  death  is,  but  where  life,  we 
stand,  and  see  Thee  but  at  work  making  Thy 
living  beauties.  A  seed  my  pleased  hand 
holds,  beautiful,  full  of  life.  I  lose  it  in  the 
soil.  Again  I  find  it  where  some  tangled 
roots  do  bed.  And  now  alas  !  it's  beauty  is 
gone,  it  is  dead,  a  lifeless  shell.  Has  it 
found  death  a  dark  reality  that  hides  from 
life  so  deep,  so  far,  that  life  can  never  search 
it  out  ?  Nay  truly  !  yonder  through  those 


160  Dreams  and  Wakings. 

roots  goes  life,  the  life  that  made  the  seed  so 
beautiful,  goes  on  by  gracious  changes  Thou 
dost  make,  to  grow  more  beautiful,  to  hang 
its  blossoms  out,  to  know  fulfilment  glorious 
that  can  not  come  but  by  these  ways  we  name 
dark  death,  and  from  them  blindly  shrink 
and  are  afraid. 

I  saw  a  nest  upon  Thy  tree,  where  blos 
soms  blow,  and  all  the  winds  are  sweetened 
with  their  breath  ;  within,  an  egg,  in  shape 
and  color  beautiful ;  life-built  and  hallowed 
by  the  life  that  built.  I  find  the  nest  again. 
My  egg  .so  beautiful  is  broke;  its  colors 
faded;  its  life  all  shaming  toward  decay; 
a  loss  that  I  lament,  and  deem  my  heart 
of  joy  still  lying  in  the  shadows  where  death 
is  master  and  life  forgets  to  come.  But 
there  comes  floating  on  the  winds  a  song 
enrapturing,  filled  with  holiest  life ;  and 
then  I  know  that  yonder  flies  my  dead  egg 
glorified  in  fuller  life,  in  life  that  could  not 
come  but  by  this  change  of  birth  that  seems 
to  partial  eyes  a  bit  of  death. 

So  all  about  me  in  Thy  world  I  find  these 
changes  that  are  loss,  that  seem  to  take  us 
far  from  life  and  deep  in  death.  But  they 
are  just  the  changes  of  growth.  Life  in  them 
makes  its  changes  for  fuller  life ;  and  every- 


Dreams  and  Wakings.  161 

where  we  are  in  the  presence  of  life ;  in  the , 
presence  of  the  all-living  One,  the  all-giving 
One,  until  we  change  from  glory  of  life  into 
glory  of  life,  lifting  ever  into  the  infinite 
greatness  with  which  His  gentleness  maketh 
great. 

And  so  of  these,  our  beautiful,  our  be 
loved.  It  is  but  a  life-change  that  we  see, 
our  eyes  not  perfect  yet  to  look  upon  the 
blaze  of  glory  where  they  went ;  their  gar 
ment  here  so  plainly  seen  ;  the  chariots  of 
fire,  the  horsemen  glorious  not  seen  by  us 
lamenting  at  our  loss.  With  Thee  they 
are,  in  Thee  ;  and  Thou  art  life  ;  and  they 
are  life  and  growth  and  beauty  evermore. 

O,  Living  One  in  whom  they  live,  glow 
down  a  little  closer  to  our  doubting  hearts; 
give  more  of  life  ;  Thyself  make  for  us  a  great 
reality,  and  we  shall  know  by  the  holiness  of 
life  and  love  we  realize  that  Thou  art,  that 
they  are,  that  we  all  are  in  a  life  divine, 
eternal,  a  growing  fellowship  of  all  that's 
good  and  great,  each  change  a  gracious 
growth,  a  blossom  newer,  finer  far,  and 
blown  by  these  very  lips  of  change. 

A  father  Thou  art,  eternal  and  divine  ;  we 
are  Thy  children  that  partake  of  Thine  all- 
glorious  nature.  Thou  art,  and  we  become ; 


162  Dreams  and  Wakings. 

and  change  by  death  is  part  of  our  becom 
ing  great,  divine,  and  beautiful  like  Thee. 
Thou  dreamest  and  we  awaken  into  being, 
and  by  all  these  changes  we  experience,  are 
but  Thy  dreams  coming  true. 

For  this  we  are  glad,  and  give  Thee  the 
gratitude  of  our  purifying,  greatening  hearts. 


XXIII. 
MY  THOUGHTS  ARE  FLOWERS, 


163 


My  Thoughts  are  Flowers.  165 

MY  THOUGHTS  ARE  FLOWERS. 

Thy  tenderness  in  April  skies 

Gives  rain  to  all  the  thirsting, 
And  branches  of  the  pulseless  trees 

With  laughing  leaves  are  bursting. 

So  o'er  my  soul  Thou  weavest  clouds 

Distilling  truths  in  showers ; 
And  all  my  heart  leaps  up  in  joy, 

And  all  my  thoughts  are  flowers. 

0  life  is  sweet  that  moves  in  Thee, 
And  all  things  satisfying  ; 

Thy  love  glows  deathless  in  my  soul, 
And  all  my  thoughts  are  flying. 

1  am  an  earth  that  moves  along 

In  all  Thy  holy  beauties ; 
My  seasons  are  Thy  glowing  thoughts 
That  fruit  in  purple  duties. 

A  child  I  am ;  from  Thine  own  heart's 

Divinest  love  I'm  growing; 
When  perfected  Thy  graces  fine 

In  all  my  being  showing; 

Thy  heart  so  satisfied  to  have 

An  answer  to  its  beating, 
As  mine  beats  back  again  to  Thine, 

Thy  fatherhood  completing. 


166  My  Thoughts  are  Flowers. 

OECAUSE  Thou  art,  Thou  strong  father- 
D  life,  Thou  tender  mother-love  in  the 
universe,  we  are.  Thou  art  the  secret  of 
our  natures,  the  hidings  of  our  lives.  We 
are  Thy  revealings  of  Thyself.  When  Thou 
wouldst  be  in  this  outer  rim  of  Thy  creation, 
lo  !  cometh  to  pass  that  the  children  of  men 
are;  of  one  blood,  though  with  infinite  va 
riety  ;  of  one  love  and  of  one  law,  of  one 
divine  humanity. 

Not  that  Thou  art  here  in  perfect  revela 
tion.  Thou  art  but  revealing  in  all  the 
children  of  men, — revealing  as  they  work 
out  in  liberty  their  problem  of  being,  their 
tasks  of  the  race,  their  labors  of  manhood. 
Thou  art  so  thoroughly  here  that  we  have 
being.  Thou  art  so  thoroughly  withdrawn 
that  we  have  self-conscious  life,  a  large  lib 
erty  of  choice  and  becoming.  Like  the 
seeds  that  rest  on  the  ground  that  they  may 
climb  up  into  the  air  and  unfold  their  blos 
som,  so  we  begin  low  that  we  may  climb 
high  ;  in  the  animal  that  we  may  attain  unto 
the  angel — begin  in  a  kingdom  of  earth  that 
we  may  lift  into  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  and 
there  unfold  our  being's  perfected  blossom. 

And  so  we  are  experiencing,  learning, 
growing,  our  very  mistakes  mastered  into 


My  Thoughts  are  Flowers.  167 

successes,  the  very  shame  of  our  sins  awak 
ening  the  hunger  of  holiness,  the  dullness 
awakening  the  need  of  brightness,  the  ugli 
ness  awakening  the  passion  for  beauty,  the 
real  asking  for  transformation  into  the 
ideal. 

Then  so  helps  what  we  achieve  of  noble 
success,  becoming  a  strength  of  character. 
So  does  the  beauty  of  holiness  become  to  us 
attainment  and  aspiration  ;  so  does  bright 
ness  and  beauty  impel  us  on  into  life  diviner 
yet ;  so  does  ideal  life,  above  us  a  tender  and 
infinite  sky,  win  us  itself  in  a  gracious 
growth.  And  all  the  while  Thou  art  this 
without,  which  instructs,  inspires,  creates, 
as  it  is  joy  or  sorrow  unto  us  in  this  life 
which  by  experience  we  live.  All  the  while 
Thou  art  within  our  deeps,  giving  unto  us 
immeasurable  life,  whose  growth  rests  upon 
this  that  is  without.  Thou  art  love  and 
truth  and  aspiration  and  hope,  yea,  even 
the  sorrows  and  despairs,  as  there  is  a  cry 
ing  out  against  any  of  these  hurts  of  time. 

In  all  our  great  infinite  within,  Thou  art 
the  pure  spirit  out  of  which  we  have  come, 
in  which  we  are  becoming  the  fulfilment  of 
Thy  tenderest,  holiest  thought  of  humanity, 
the  thinkings  upon  Thyself  which  in  us  are 


168  My  Thoughts  are  Flowers. 

blessedly  saved  from  selfishness.  And  so  it 
is  that  Thou  canst  not  deny  us. 

We,  all  of  us  that  girdle  Thy  round  earth, 
are  Thy  children  ;  and  we  are  brethren  ow 
ing  a  brother's  love  and  duties  to  one  an 
other  in  every  need,  in  every  achievement. 
We  have  a  common  sorrow,  and  can  under 
stand  the  voices  of  each  other's  grief  with 
a  heart  for  sympathy  and  a  hand  for  help. 
We  have  common  joy,  and  can  understand 
each  other's  voice  of  gladness  with  a  heart 
for  sympathy  and  a  hand  for  help.  We 
have  common  despairs,  and  can  understand 
each  other's  hopeless  gloom,  each  other's 
thoughts  that  make  Thy  universe  a  woe,  our 
lives  a  failure.  We  have  common  hopes, 
and  can  understand  each  other's  sunny  faith, 
our  finding  life  a  good,  creation  kind.  Of 
one  blood  Thou  hast  made  us,  of  one  com 
mon  frail  humanity.  Of  one  religious  na 
ture  we  are  begotten,  and  so  our  religions 
have  their  unity,  and  in  exchange  of  their 
best  and  highest  we  may  all  become  en 
riched,  enlarged,  and  made  great  in  Thy 
greatness  ever  fulfilling  in  a  humanity  grow 
ing  diviner. 

And  so,  for  the  era  of  good  fellowship 
and  brotherhood,  coming  forth  in  all  the 


My  Thoughts  are  Flowers.  169 

earth,  we  thank  Thee,  and  pray  that  from 
all  narrowness,  and  bigotry,  and  segregating 
prejudice  we  may  be  saved,  attaining  ever 
unto  that  truth  that  makes  good,  unto  that 
life  that  is  fulness  of  joy  in  our  childhood 
perfecting  in  Thy  everlasting  love. 


XXIV. 
LAUGHS  AT  DEATH, 


171 


173 


LAUGHS  AT  DEATH. 
Each  thing  we  see  is  but  Thy  life 

Which  Thou  for  us  art  living ; 
In  every  change  we're  calling  death 

Thou  fuller  life  art  giving. 

The  living  seed  drops  in  the  soil 

Where  night  and  death  are  glooming, 

A  grief-glad  way  by  which  it  finds 
The  laughter  of  its  blooming. 

The  worm  creeps  lowly  on  the  earth, 

Its  journey's  end  in  dying; 
Nay  !  there  at  flower  banquetings 

Its  resurrection's  flying. 

Where  lily  boats  at  anchor  ride 
The  grub's  last  pulse  is  beating ; 

But  resurrection  laughs  at  death, 
Its  dragon-fly  completing. 

The  shame  of  dust  to  summer  eggs 
The  earth-old  death  is  bringing ; 

But  hark  !  those  birds  on  happy  wing 
Death's  coronation  singing ! 

So  ever  life  becomes  itself 

In  change  that's  but  fulfilling  ; 

And  everything  we're  naming  death 
Is  but  life's  tender  willing. 


174  Laughs  at  Death. 

Eternal  Lord  of  deathless  life, 
Thy  perfect  love  we're  prizing, 

That  in  the  earth  and  in  ourselves 
Each  death  is  but  a  rising. 


"THOU  art  life,  and  Thy  fulness  fills  all. 
There  is  nowhere  that  Thou  art  not. 
All  space  is  full  of  Thee.  Nowhen  has  been, 
can  be,  and  Thou  not  the  pulse-beat  of  its 
seconds.  Thou  art  the  faithfulness  of  the 
grain  of  sand,  the  righteousness  that  keeps 
suns  at  their  splendors.  Thou  art  an  ever 
lasting  yea,  saying  out  truth's  words  with 
the  fire  of  a  quenchless  love  in  their  hearts. 
Thou  affirmest  the  rose.  It  is  a  yea  of  Thy 
heart.  Thou  couldst  not  deny  it  into  exist 
ence.  When  it  has  faded  from  our  sight, 
Thou  hast  said  no  nay  to  Thy  heart.  Thy 
love  that  is  eternal  is  full  of  roses,  and  their 
endless  beauty  will  always  be.  The  going 
of  the  bloom  is  but  the  pause  in  the  cadences 
of  the  speech,  marking  off  the  music  of  the 
voice  that  says  the  endless  poem  of  the 
roses.  Not  only  the  music  of  the  voice,  but 
its  meanings,  is  marked  off  by  the  silence. 
So  the  seed  is  said,  and  then  is  the  silence  of 
its  decay  as  though  there  was  a  nay  in  Thy 


Laughs  at  Death.  175 

beating  heart ;  but  we  listen  on,  and  Thy 
heart's  meanings  clear  as  Thy  voice  is  a 
tongue  of  green  above  the  ground.  That  fades 
as  though  Thou  hadst  denied  something,  but 
it  is  the  pause  marking  off  the  meaning  of 
the  speech ;  for  Thou  sayest  on  and  on,  and 
the  vine  rhymes  its  verse  in  the  vineyard's 
song.  Then  is  the  blossom  said,  to  pause  in 
that  fading  that  is  the  silence  marking  off 
the  greening  grape.  Then  the  empurpled 
speech,  a  splendor  on  the  autumn  winds  : 
then  the  fading  that  is  silence  making  seed; 
and  so  speaks  on  the  endless  rhythm  of  Thy 
speech  we  call  the  grape. 

Death  is  not  denial.  It  is  not  the  nega 
tion  of  life.  Within  the  silence  we  call 
death  there  is  life  at  the  task  of  making  its 
affirmations,  nothing  passing  away,  but  each 
fulfilled  in  the  fuller  life  that  speaks,  as  when 
a  note  sweetens  and  gathers  into  the  full 
song  from  the  singer's  throat.  The  denial 
of  the  caterpillar  which  we  call  death  is  life's 
affirmation  of  the  butterfly.  And  when  life 
to  us  seems  gone,  crushed  out  beneath  some 
blundering,  cruel  feet,  and  we  do  not  see  it 
affirming  butterflies,  our  faith  holds  still  the 
truth  that  Thy  heart's  speech  is  moulded  to 
some  fuller  word,  the  worm  still  on  some 


176  Laughs  at  Death. 

wings  of  ascent  with  pauses  to  help  out  the 
meaning  and  the  music  of  its  life,  until  it  is 
a  fulness  of  Thy  heart's  eternal  yea. 

The  babe  on  the  mother's  breast  is  the 
language  of  Thy  heart.  It  is  an  affirmation 
of  Thine  everlasting  love.  When  babyhood 
is  in  silence  there  is  no  denial,  but  simply 
pause  that  Thy  music  of  human  life  may  say 
on  in  the  child.  When  the  child  is  in  si 
lence,  it  is  but  another  pause  that  Thy  fuller 
truth  of  man  may  speak  out.  And  when 
has  disappeared  the  consecrated  flesh  that 
seemed  our  beautiful  friend,  our  faith  holds 
it  true  that  this  silence  is  but  a  pause  mark 
ing  off  the  music  and  meaning  of  Thy  per 
fecting  human  speech  that  sings  in  Thy 
endless  music  through  Thy  universe,  finding 
nowhere,  nowhen  and  Thou  not  filling  it 
with  the  sweet  positiveness  of  Thyself. 

Nothing  can  not  create.  Denial  can  not 
fulfil  in  anything  that  is.  It  is  void,  an 
emptiness  that  fills  nothing.  No  world 
could  come  from  it.  Not  a  grain  of  sand 
or  a  star.  Not  rose  nor  oak.  Not  gnat 
nor  bird.  Not  babe  nor  man.  That  the  oak 
crowns  the  hill,  that  the  bird  is  on  the  wing, 
that  the  babe  is  on  the  breast,  is  fact  of  a 
life  that  is  positive  and  kind,  creating  the 


Laughs  at  Death.  177 

universe   in   a   glory   that    no   deaths   can 
deny. 

We  are  and  have  been  and  will  be, 
the  changes  we  call  death  but  the  pauses 
of  Thy  heart's  speech  marking  off  the 
music  and  meanings  of  Thy  love's  elo 
quence  that  is  our  endless  human  life.  Thou 
art  eternal  life,  and  we  are  of  that  life  an 
imperishable  part,  and  no  denial  anywhere, 
for  Thou  and  Thy  creation  art  eternal  yea 
and  amen. 


XXV. 
IN  EVERYTHING  REVEALED. 


179 


In  Everything  Revealed.  181 


IN  EVERYTHING  REVEALED. 
In  everything  Thou  art  revealed 

The  faithfulness  that  gives 
The  bounties  of  our  happy  earth, 

And  every  life  that  lives ; 
Thy  love  the  grace  in  every  flower, 

A  rapture  for  our  eyes  ; 
In  every  bird  Thy  thinkings  speak 

A  holy  word  that  flies. 

Thou  art  the  dear  humanity 

These  brother  faces  show  ; 
The  holy  deeps  of  Thine  own  life 

These  lives  of  ours  bestow  ; 
And  when  we're  sore  a-hungering  what 

Thy  hidden  lovings  mean, 
In  lives  of  human  goodness  Thou 

Dost  vision  Thy  unseen. 

We  give  Thee  back  Thy  holy  love 

In  loving  everything 
The  dear  earth's  faithfulness  has  won 

From  Thy  pure  passioning ; 
We  love  Thee  back  Thy  birds  and  flowers, 

Thy  human  children  dear  ; 
In  every  deed  of  kindness  done 

Our  troubled  thinkings  clear. 

Earth's  changing  beauties  are  to  show 

How  beautiful  Thou  art ; 
Their  passing  but  some  deepening  grace 

Of  Thine  eternal  heart, 


182  In  Everything  Revealed. 

Compelling  us  for  dying  ones 
The  happy  faith  to  hold, 

That  they  in  love  diviner  yet 
Their  being's  sweets  unfold. 


'"T' 
1 


'HY  universe,  O  Lord  of  all  being,  is 
alive;  and  life  must  be  its  interpreter. 
It  is  a  universe  of  life,  and  therefore  uni 
versal  life  must  interpret  it.  It  is  at  play 
upon  man,  it  is  fulfilling  in  man,  and  so  for 
its  understanding  the  entire  man  must  be  at 
work  upon  it,  must  be  fulfilling  in  it.  Each 
thing  is  related  to  each  other  thing,  and  so 
are  but  the  parts  of  the  infinite  whole. 
Nothing  stands  alone,  and  can  alone  be  un 
derstood.  In  other  things  it  loses  itself,  and 
in  them  must  have  a  part  of  its  interpreta 
tion. 

Then  each  thing  is  at  some  service,  —  a 
diligence  it  is  in  all  this  wonderful  becom 
ing,  a  part  of  which  we  are.  By  this  ser 
vice,  this  diligence,  it  unfolds  its  nature, 
fulfils  its  place  in  the  universal  whole.  The 
root  of  the  rose  can  not  interpret  the  mar 
velous  red  of  the  sunbeam.  Its  stalk  can 
only  show  us  the  green.  There  must  be  the 
working  out  of  leaf  and  bud  and  blossom, 


In  Everything  Revealed.  183 

the  bush's  full  nature,  before  the  sun  may 
know  the  rose,  the  rose  the  sun,  before  that 
man  can  know  the  glory  of  their  work-fel 
lowship.  Something  in  the  violet  responds 
to  something  in  the  sun,  and  both  are  glori 
fied  in  the  perfected  blossom.  A  dead  seed 
can  not  answer  a  living  sun,  nor  a  dead  sun 
call  forth  a  beauty  from  a  living  seed.  Life 
unto  life,  life  for  life,  and  so  we  behold  the 
wonders  of  creation. 

As  true  is  it  of  us,  Thy  children  higher 
than  that  bit  of  living,  lowly  sky,  we  call 
the  violet.  If  Thy  universe  is  to  fashion 
us,  there  must  be  that  within  us  to  respond 
to  all  its  moods,  its  powers,  its  truths,  its 
loves.  Any  part  of  our  nature  dead,  the 
work  of  a  living  universe  can  not  be  done 
upon  us,  we  can  not  together  become  the 
beauty  of  Thine  intent.  If  we  have  killed 
ourselves  with  falsehood,  we  can  not  know 
the  truth  that  maketh  free.  If  we  have  de 
filed  ourselves  with  evil  affections,  we  can 
not  know  the  pure  love  that  is  everywhere. 
If  there  is  no  beauty  of  holiness  within  us, 
there  is  no  beauty  of  holiness  without  to 
bless  us  in  the  greatness  of  its  life. 

Thou  who  art  the  God  within  us  and  the 
God  without  us,  help  us  to  realize  this  truth. 
Only  as  we  realize  it  can  we  grow  up  into 


184  In  Everything  Revealed. 

Thy  thought  of  a  child.  Only  so  shall  our 
knowledge  be  wisdom.  Only  so  shall  our 
lives  be  saved  from  foolish  waste.  We  have 
so  much  useless  knowledge  which  is  but  as 
the  mould  of  graves  ;  so  much  idle  specula 
tion  about  Thy  universe,  Thy  Christ,  Thy 
self,  that  is  but  the  roadside  dust,  so  thick 
on  the  grass  that  it  can  not  breathe  and  grow. 
Help  us  into  truer  life  than  this.  May 
the  universe  within  be  all  alive  and  answer 
ing  in  a  blessed  growth  the  universe  with 
out.  May  the  Christ  within  be  all  respon 
sive  to  the  Christ  without;  so  shall  we  know 
Him  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,  lead 
ing  to  Thee,  our  beautiful  and  everlasting 
Father.  May  Thyself  within  us  be  respon 
sive  to  Thyself  without ;  so  shalt  Thou  have 
children  giving  unto  Thee  fullness  of  life  \ 
so  shall  we  have  a  Father  who  is  our  eternal 
life,  our  everlasting  gladness  ;  so  shall  we  be 
saved  from  the  trivialities  of  men,  and  in 
Thy  greatness  be  made  great ;  so  shall  we  be 
at  the  full  solution  of  our  life's  problem, 
our  entire  manhood  interpreting  it,  our 
entire  life  fulfilling  it ;  so  will  our  weeping 
in  the  essential  sorrows  of  life  endure  but 
for  the  night,  and  in  the  morning  come  our 
laughter  in  the  essential  gladness  of  our  life 
as  it  lies  in  Thy  perfect  fatherhood. 


XXVI. 
I  GRIEVE  NOT   HOPELESS, 


185 


/  Grieve  not  Hopeless.  187 

I  GRIEVE  NOT  HOPELESS. 
From  silver  winds  thy  sparrow's  throat 

Spun  golden  skeins  of  song, 
Enchanting  me  till  I  forgot 

That  earth  has  any  wrong. 

But  sudden  shadow  darkened  down, 

And  all  the  music  stilled  ; 
The  cruel  hawk  reminding  me 

That  earth  with  wrong  is  filled. 

And  yet,  though  death  its  silence  brought, 

Bird  songs  are  everywhere, 
And  sing  to  me  that  right  abides 

With  wrong  the  earth  to  share. 

Though  hell's  aflight  on  wicked  wing, 
Yet  heaven's  wings  are  spread, 

And  truth  still  has  its  songs  that  sing, 
Though  falsehood  has  its  dead. 

I  grieve  not  hopeless  that  thy  earth 

So  answers  shine  with  shade ; 
For  joy  keeps  singing  in  the  faith, 

Thy  earth's  but  being  made. 

What  thine  eternal  loving  means 

Shall  come  from  all  the  strife, 
And  every  bit  of  being  know 

That  Thou  art  willing  life ; 


188  /  Grieve  not  Hopeless. 

Thy  right  but  toiling  at  its  tasks, 
With  wrong  its  fashioning  stroke  ; 

Death  but  intenser  shade  of  dawn 
As  fuller  life  outbroke. 

So  true  and  truer  make  my  thoughts, 
My  heart  make  wholly  good, 

Each  passing  grief  a  shrine  wherein 
Thyself  creating  stood  ; 

Until  no  death's  upon  my  winds, 
No  songs  that  pass  away, 

Each  heart-beat  but  a  song  to  praise, 
And  not  a  fear  to  pray  ; 

Thy  finished  work  a  holy  peace, 
Wherein  thy  heart  may  rest  ; 

A  benediction  earth  says  back 
For  all  thy  words  that  blest. 


ONLY  as  Thou  dost  sustain  us,  Thou  one 
pure,  steadfast  life,  can  we  live  out 
Thy  nobleness  amid  these  changes  all  about, 
these  temporizings,  these  false  and  evil  mo 
tives.  It  is  the  steady,  eternal  within  which 
holds  the  without  to  high  ends,  in  faithful 
ness  to  its  nature,  in  the  accomplishment 
of  its  work.  The  oak  is  not  simply  an  outer 


/  Grieve  not  Hopeless.  189 

struggle  and  toil  with  the  elements.  It  is  a 
thought,  an  inward  life  fulfilling  in  the  outer 
world.  The  bird  upon  the  bough,  that  sways 
and  sings  and  sings  and  sways,  is  not  simply 
a  bit  of  frail  flesh  with  dangers  everywhere. 
It  is  an  inward  thought,  a  life  wrought  out 
in  flesh  that  all  its  fairness  may  help  beautify 
the  earth.  And  so  of  all  these  things  we 
see.  They  are  outward  manifestations  of 
inward  realities.  The  inward  reality  makes 
them  possible,  sustains  them,  keeps  them, 
when  the  outward  form  changes,  vanishing 
away. 

So  of  us,  Thy  children  of  the  human  life. 
This  flesh  is  manifestation,  not  reality.  Its 
outward  environment  and  relationships  are 
but  changes  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  in 
ward  reality,  the  life  that  abides,  the  thought 
that  is  eternal.  No  thought  begins  in  matter 
and  ends  in  matter.  Its  beginning  is  in 
spirit,  its  work  through  matter,  its  end  in 
spirit.  It  is  the  eternal  with  the  temporal 
as  theater  of  action,  that  so  action  may  be 
fashioned  into  deathless  beauties  fulfilling 
ever.  And  so  is  life's  immeasurable  worth; 
in  deathlessness,  the  dignity  of  our  human 
nature.  Not  only  we,  but  our  deeds  are 
immortal,  spirits  gathered  from  their  outward 


190  /  Grieve  not  Hopeless. 

passing  into  the  heavens  and  hells  of  our 
character. 

In  this  truth  there  is  dread  and  sustain 
ing;  dread  that  we  can  not  do  the  low  and 
mean,  and  escape  it  by  distance  of  time  and 
space ;  sustaining  that  we  can  not  waste  a 
noble,  true  action,  that  it  abides  all  the 
outward  changes,  still  blessing.  To  him  who 
lives  and  dares  for  the  right  there  is  the 
sustaining  consciousness  of  union  with  the 
eternal,  of  inevitable  success  in  the  universe, 
that  amid  all  the  seeming  failures  there  lies 
the  true  and  everlasting  success,  upon  the 
decay  of  failures  feeding  its  very  growing 
greatness.  Amid  every  waste  of  winter, 
vegetation  is  still  undefeated.  Spring  fails 
not  in  its  coming,  and  the  hidden  life  fails 
not  of  its  revealing  on  every  mountain,  in 
every  valley.  So  it  is  that  we  may  have 
ever  the  courage  of  the  undefeated  heart ; 
that  ever  out  of  the  most  overwhelming  de 
feat  we  may  rally  victory  ;  that  there  is  no 
weariness  unto  death  in  the  wars  of  righteous 
ness. 

In  the  fulness  of  this  truth  take  our 
hearts.  Possess  us  so  that  we  may  feel  Thy 
sustaining  presence  always,  making  us  wise, 
strong,  victorious.  Be  Thou  our  fortress 


/  Grieve  not  Hopeless.  101 

in  which  we  abide  safely,  from  whence  we 
make  our  assaults  and  order  our  campaigns. 
Then  will  Thy  purpose  to  possess  the  earth 
by  us  in  a  perfecting  holiness  be  at  its  gra 
cious  fulfilment. 

Heart  of  our  heart,  be  tender  and  pure 
within  us.  Life  of  our  life,  be  ever  gracious 
and  true  and  kind  as  Thou  dost  live  us  out, 
Thy  graces  that  can  bless.  Courage  within 
our  courage,  be  brave  for  every  deed,  endur 
ing  for  every  warfare.  Wisdom  within  our 
wisdom,  be  the  fulness  of  our  thought,  the 
sacredness  of  our  speech,  the  holiness  of 
our  action.  Love  within  our  love,  be  pure, 
peaceable,  a  fervent  sun  infilling  the  whole 
earth  of  our  lives  with  creations  of  beauty 
and  service.  Fatherhood  within  our  child 
hood,  come  forth,  the  holiness,  the  beauty 
of  thy  children,  the  transfiguration  of  earth 
in  the  glories  of  eternal  life,  through  truth 
and  love  working  out  its  delights  that  never 
gloom  in  any  grief. 

So  will  the  fulfilment  of  Thy  meaning  of 
us  be  an  everlasting  peace  unto  Thee. 


XXVII. 
OUR  HUMAN  HUNGER'S  MINISTRY, 


193 


Our  Human  Hunger's  Ministry.        195 

OUR  HUMAN  HUNGER'S  MINISTRY. 
Thou  art  the  sun  whose  tender  glow 

The  earth's  true  heart  of  loving  gains, 
Until  its  patient  toilings  grow 

Becoming  fruits  and  golden  grains  ; 
In  these  the  sun  transformed  to  be 
Our  human  hunger's  ministry. 

Thou  art  the  air  that  breathes  around, 
Becoming  storm  or  gentle  breeze, 

That  so  each  leaf  above  the  ground 

Works  out  its  tasks  of  flowers  and  trees  ; 

In  these  the  winds  transformed  to  be 

Our  human  hunger's  ministry. 

Thou  art  the  rain  that  gentles  down 
From  clouds  that  hide  the  blue  above, 

The  rain  that  weaves  the  blossoms'  crown, 
The  fruit,  sweet  passion  of  its  love  ; 

In  these  the  rain  transformed  to  be 

Our  human  hunger's  ministry. 

Thou  art  the  ground  whose  darkness  gives 
Its  treasures  to  the  growing  roots, 

Until  its  life  each  glad  thing  lives, 
And  loves  into  its  ripened  fruits  ; 

In  these  the  soils  transformed  to  be 

Our  human  hunger's  ministry. 

But  more  than  these,  O  Lord,  Thou  art, 

In  love  divine  that  never  dies  ; 
Each  hunger  of  the  human  heart 


196        Our  Human  Hunger's  Ministry. 

Thy  human  heart  so  satisfies  ; 
Thyself  each  thing  transformed  to  be 
Our  human  hunger's  ministry. 

So  weave  we  sun  and  wind  and  rain, 
And  lowly  grounds  rich  faithfulness, 

Into  our  hymning  heart's  refrain 

That  would  Thy  deepest  being  bless  ; 

Ourselves  in  love  transformed  to  be 

Thy  human  hunger's  ministry. 


BECAUSE  Thou  art  love,  O  creation's 
Lord,  Thou  art  the  life  of  everything 
that  is.  Because  Thou  art  wisdom,  every 
thing  has  its  own  perfectness,  living  in  law. 
Thy  affection  that  is  the  rose  comes  to  its 
wonder  of  bloom  by  no  unguided  impulse, 
by  no  lawless  magic.  Through  wisdom  it  is 
wrought  out  to  be  the  joy  and  fragrancing 
it  is.  Because  it  is  what  it  is,  it  can  come 
only  in  the  way  it  comes.  Coming  in  an 
other  way  it  were  not  itself,  but  something 
other,  the  dear  marvel  of  its  joyance  bless 
ing  not  at  all.  So  of  Thy  aifection  that  is 
the  lamb  at  play  in  the  fields,  the  thrush  at 
song  on  the  winds,  the  child  that  is  a  joy 
in  homes  —  the  grasses  and  grains,  the 
flowers  and  fruits,  the  horses  and  kine,  the 


Our  Hitman  Hunger's  Ministry.       197 

flocks  that  sing  in  groves  and  fly  the  upper 
fields  of  air.  Each  thing  that  is,  is  but  some 
tenderness  of  Thine ;  but  not  a  tenderness 
that  is  idle,  aimless  feeling,  beginning  in 
and  ending  in  Thyself,  but  a  tenderness  that 
is  a  thought,  in  wisdom  wrought  to  be  the 
thing  that  joys  and  blesses  us. 

No  aimless  impulse  is  in  all  Thy  being. 
No  fickle  love  can  pulse  in  Thy  wise  heart. 
Thy  loves  are  thoughts ;  Thy  thoughts  are 
loves ;  and  everything  a  steadfast  law  that 
moves  in  love,  that  fruits  in  wisdom ;  and 
so  in  all  that  Thou  hast  made  through 
which  to  love  us  we  can  trust  Thee,  and 
never  be  confounded  with  any  failure  of  Thy 
faith-keeping  with  us  in  all  that  is.  Gold 
is  gold,  the  iron  iron  ;  the  grass  is  grass,  the 
grape  grape  ;  the  sheep  is  sheep,  and  kine 
are  kine  ;  the  dove  is  dove,  the  robin  robin  ; 
man  is  man,  and  woman  woman  ;  within 
pure  love,  right  thought,  themselves  and 
nothing  else;  within,  without,  each  thing, 
and  all,  is  true  to  itself,  its  fellows — no 
magic  anywhere  confusing. 

The  wisdom  of  Thy  love  is  the  fervor  of 
Thy  love,  the  faithfulness  of  it,  the  saving 
power  of  it,  the  fine  splendors  of  it  by  which 
the  universe  becomes,  and  man,  Thy  child, 
into  Thy  image  and  likeness  ever  growing. 


198        Our  Human  Hunger's  Ministry. 

That  this  is  true  we  bless  Thee,  though  it 
is  truth  that  often  wounds  us,  making  us 
afraid.  But  yet,  when  we  think  deeper,  we 
know  well  that  everything  that  hurts  in  its 
own  inmost  being  is  a  love  at  work  to  help, 
to  be  to  us  some  grace  of  holiness  and  joy. 
We  get  at  wrong  with  it  and  turn  its  help  to 
hurt.  Each  thing  in  its  place,  and  doing 
its  own  work,  is  always  love  at  gracious  toil 
of 'making  good  and  glad  this  life.  But  out 
of  place,  and  used  in  ignorance  or  sin,  it 
hurts,  and  we  defeat  its  gracious  makings, 
having  ashes  for  beauty  and  the  spirit  of 
heaviness  for  the  garment  of  praise. 

Of  this  great  truth  make  us  to  realize 
that  we  are  partakers,  for  only  so  can  we  be 
come  satisfying  children  to  Thee,  our  lives 
not  spent  in  vain.  So  help  us  to  know  that 
our  affections  must  not  be  blind  impulses,  but 
thoughts,  that  they  must  work  themselves  out 
into  acts  that  are  pure  and  holy  and  full  of 
help.  To  have  a  noblest  impulse  is  not  alone 
enough.  It  must  be  wrought  into  a  wise 
thought,  into  a  true  work,  into  a  right  ac 
tion.  So  only  can  our  love  fulfil  itself;  a 
nobleness  to  those  without;  a  childhood 
unto  Thee  who  ever  worketh  out  Thy  love 
through  wisdom,  nothing  erring,  in  all 
things  true  and  steadfast,  a  very  present 


Our  Human  Hunger's  Ministry.        199 

help  to  man,  a  final  glory  unto  him  as  he  lives 
the  life  Thou  livest  thus  for  him. 

So  help  that  all  our  love  through  wisdom 
may  work  out  a  life,  a  character,  like  Thine 
— tender,  faithful,  wise,  abiding ;  a  child 
hood  answering  perfectly  Thine  own  great 
fatherhood,  that  never  fails  in  tenderness 
because  of  wisdom  it  has  never  any  lack. 


XXVIII. 

BEING'S  FULL  BLOSSOM  WILL 
BLOW. 


201 


Being  s  Full  Blossom  will  Blow.       203 


BEING'S  FULL  BLOSSOM  WILL  BLOW. 
Into  slime,  into  foulness,  is  gone 

The  seed  that  the  lily's  heart  missed ; 
But  its  soul  held  a  bit  of  the  dawn 

That  the  lily  in  tenderness  kissed. 

As  it  lay  'neath  the  waters  so  dark, 
It  dreamed  of  the  beautiful  sun  ; 

It  dreamed  of  the  song  of  the  lark, 
And  the  winds  that  at  playing  did  run. 

The  sun  loved  the  lily ;  its  beams 
Warmed  down  where  the  little  seed  lay  ; 

It  awoke  from  its  love's  tender  dreams, 
And  determined  to  climb  into  day. 

From  the  very  foulness  it  won 
Some  graces  of  courage  to  climb, 

That  the  dream  of  its  heart  might  be  done, 
A  deed  of  the  dear  summer  time. 

It  clomb  through  the  dark  slimy  ways  ; 

It  clomb  from  the  pond's  dreary  night ; 
And  lo  !  through  the  bright  summer  days 

It  walked  with  its  dear  Lord  in  white. 

E'en  so  from  these  evils  we'll  grow  ; 

For  our  hearts  hold  a  bit  of  Thy  grace ; 
And  our  being's  full  blossom  will  blow 

In  the  tender  light  of  Thy  face. 


204       Being's  Full  Blossom  will  Blow. 

T^HOU,  O  Creator,  who  art  Love,  hast  not 
1  finished  Thy  work  of  making  man  and 
withdrawn  afar,  leaving  him  to  his  own  de 
vices,  to  the  devastations  of  enemies  that 
prey  upon  his  helplessness.  Thou  art  here  at 
work  in  a  holy  diligence.  Thou  art  at  work 
without  him  ;  Thou  art  at  work  within  him. 
Thou  givest  him  an  earth  which  will  give 
him  an  experience.  An  earth  without  Thou 
givest,  an  earth  within.  And  as  he  subdues 
this  earth  which  seemeth  to  be  two,  Thou 
art  creating  him  more  and  more  into  what 
Thy  deepest  heart  doth  purpose.  He  is 
rooting  fast  in  the  earth's  hard  and  battling 
conditions ;  he  is  growing  toward  his  blos 
som  of  ethical  and  spiritual  and  divine  life. 
Seems  it  that  he  works  alone,  but  he  is 
never  uncompanioned  by  Thee.  Thou 
hidest  in  the  secrets  of  his  being.  Thou 
art  not  afar  from  all  his  experiences.  Thou 
sittest  above  them  as  a  weaver,  and  when 
their  threads  are  spun  Thou  bringest  them 
into  their  place  in  the  web  of  his  making. 
Indeed,  what  lies  above  and  within  all  his 
life  is  greater  than  what  he  is  conscious 
of;  greater  in  Thy  touch  of  fashioning  than 
in  that  which  he  lives  in  all  his  conscious 
ways.  He  seems  apart  from  this  creation  of 
Thine ;  upon  it,  not  built  into  it. 


Being's  Full  Blossom  will  Blow.       205 

And  yet  Thou  hast  made  him  in  the  sub 
tlest   relationships   to   everything    that    is. 
Upon  his  life,  for  lowest  and  for  highest  ends, 
each  thing  that  is  doth  make  its  nature  felt ; 
is  texture  woven   fast  within   the  growing 
man.     If  poisons  be  without,   their  moral 
qualities  are  within.     If  grains  that  grow  for 
life  unfold  in  fields,  their  moral  counterparts 
are   in   man's   deepest   heart;  are    coming 
forth  in  all  his   conscious   life.     If  beasts 
unclean  apart  do  make  their  cruel  lairs,  their 
moral  qualities  within   man    hide  to  work 
destruction    there.     If  beasts  of  sweetness 
roam  the  fields  with  gentleness,  enriching 
all  the  earth,  their  spirit  doubles  are  within 
each  man  to   hallow  and   to   sanctify.     If 
birds  without  do  darken  all  the  air  with  their 
dread  wings  of  foulness  and  of  death,  some 
how   they  fly   within    the  soul  of  man,  to 
darken   there,  and  there  to  devastate.     If 
birds  of   beauty,    every   flight   a  joy,   and 
every  heart-beat  but  a  burst  of  song,  make 
all  the  winds  without  seem  sinless  and  di 
vine,    they  fly  as   well  the    soul   of  man  ; 
they  are  his  thoughts,  they  nest  and  bring 
forth  young  in  all  the  nobler  regions  of  his 
heart.     Each  thing  that  is  without  has  deep 
in  man  its  double ;  spiritual,  ethical,  divine. 


206       Being's  Full  Blossom  will  Blow. 

And  so,  Lord,  help  us  do  for  ourselves 
within  what  we  are  doing  for  ourselves 
without.  The  foes  without  with  diligence 
we  subdue.  We  shun  what  would  bring  evil 
upon  us— the  sicknesses  and  deaths.  So  may 
we  shun  and  cast  out  from  all  our  hearts 
within  whatever  is  unclean  or  cruel,  what 
ever  is  that  makes  our  moral  life  grow  sick 
and  die.  May  every  sight  and  sound  and 
cruel  thing  that  is  evil  be  brought  to 
death,  and  we  grow  pure  and  beautiful  like 
Thee ;  for  us  a  heaven  new,  an  earth  re 
deemed  and  sanctified. 

As  vines  turn  everything  they  feed  upon 
into  the  blushing  grape,  may  we  from  all 
that  is,  from  all  that  we  experience,  grow 
for  Thee  something  beautiful,  divine,  in 
which  Thy  heart  will  be  forever  satisfied, 
Thy  whole  great  being  so  at  joy  that  in  our 
selves  it  has  at  last  its  own  blessed  fulfil 
ment,  the  great  creation  done. 


XXIX. 
WITHIN  MY  HEART, 


207 


Within  My  Heart.  200 

WITHIN  MY  HEART. 
All  beauty  that  without  me  lies 

Is  there  to  fashion  me, 
A  child  of  beauty  that  Thy  heart 

May  love  so  joyously. 

A  bird  Thou  lovest  for  itself ; 

Thy  heart  flies  in  its  wings ; 
Some  dear  enchantment  of  Thyself 

In  all  its  music  sings. 

But  yet  it  flies  its  happy  way 

Within  Thy  tender  thought, 
That  somehow  all  its  beauty  may 

Within  my  heart  be  wrought. 

It  wakens  life  within  my  soul 

That  deathless  beauty  gives ; 
That  life,  its  happy  counterpart, 

In  me  eternal  lives. 

And  thus  of  all  these  wondrous  things 

That  stir  my  senses  so, 
They  are  without,  that  I,  within, 

May  in  their  graces  grow. 

Thy  whole  creation  joys  Thy  heart 

For  its  own  beauty's  sake : 
And  yet  Thou  dost  through  all  its  ways 

Thy  human  children  make. 

N 


210  Within  My  Heart. 

And  they  can  love  Thee  as  no  bird 
Abroad  on  happy  wing  ; 

They  understand  Thy  holy  thought  ; 
They  feel  Thy  passioning. 

So  through  creation  moves  Thy  life, 
That  it  may  move  in  me, 

And  Thou  at  last  may  have  a  child, 
Thy  heart's  dear  company. 

The  travail  of  my  making  then, 

Will  both  so  satisfy  ; 
Thou,  as  a  bird's  own  beating  heart, 

I,  as  its  wings  that  fly. 

O  life  eternal,  flying,  then, 
One  happy  heart  that  beats  ; 

My  love  in  Thine  is  perfected, 
My  life  Thine  own  completes  ! 


117E  find  Thee  for  beauty  in  Thy  flowers, 
W  for  singing  in  Thy  birds,  for  kind 
ness  in  Thy  grains  that  grow  to  bless,  for 
grandeur  in  Thy  mountains  and  Thy  seas, 
for  gentleness  in  all  Thy  sheep  and  kine. 
Thou  art  the  life  of  all,  and  everything  is 
some  dear  fulfilment  of  Thyself. 

But  most  we  thank  Thee  that,  for  hallow- 


Within  My  Heart.  211 

ing,  human  love,  we  find  Thee  in  our  kind. 
Thou  art  the  dear  babe's  tenderness,  the 
children's  holy  innocence;  Thou  art  the 
mother's  deathless  love,  the  father's ;  Thou 
art  in  all  these  human  lives  incarnate ; 
Thou  their  causing  and  fulfilment,  their 
deepest  meaning,  their  always  diviner  be 
coming.  As  daisies  smiling  in  the  dawn 
translate  the  sun,  too  great  for  us  to  look 
upon  his  naked  glory,  so  these  dear  human 
friends  do  make  Thee  known.  They  make 
Thy  meanings  unto  us  so  plain  and  beautiful. 
In  great  endearment  they  hold  our  hearts 
along  diviner  ways  that  lead  to  Thee.  Thou 
art  the  beauty  of  each  face ;  Thou  art  the 
love  of  each  dear  heart;  the  faithfulness, 
the  holiness,  that  through  them  makes  us 
great.  And  so  for  them  we  give  Thee  our 
thanks.  Growing  together  into  holiness,  we 
will  find  Thee  in  a  childhood  deepening  ever 
into  what  Thy  truest  love  doth  mean. 

We  are  glad  that  Thou  hast  given  Thyself 
to  us  in  the  great  and  good  of  the  earth  ;  in 
these,  who  have  been  tender  and  true,  who 
are  inspiration  unto  the  holiest, who  are  pio 
neers  of  the  ever-coming  better  day.  What 
they  were  Thou  art  infinitely.  In  them 
Thou  art  made  flesh  and  dost  dwell  among 


212  Within  My  Heart. 

us,  teaching  us  Thy  beauty  of  holiness 
that  we  may  desire  Thee;  teaching  us  the 
possibilities  that  in  ourselves  lie  unfulfilled  ; 
for  what  they  are  we  may  become,  our  be 
ing's  full  to  faithfulness  attained  as  fine  as 
theirs,  though  in  fame  and  greatness  they 
surpass  us  far.  Thou  art  in  them  unto  their 
perfecting,  and  in  us  Thou  dost  abide  that 
we  become  Thy  holiest  meanings  of  a  child. 
In  them  Thou  givest  us  some  image  of  our 
selves  as  we  may  be,  as  we  become  admiring 
them  and  touched  by  consecrating  fire  from 
out  their  lives. 

So  do  they  become  Thy  divine  words 
blessing  us,  Thy  gentleness  making  us  great. 
They  have  been  some  quiet  contemplation 
leading  us  into  peace ;  some  battle  deed, 
leading  us  into  noble  daring  ;  some  unself 
ishness  that  has  enlarged  us  in  Thy  greatness ; 
some  love  that  has'  been  to  us  a  renewing 
unto  the  eternal  life ;  some  purity  that  has 
been  unto  us  holiness ;  some  truth  that  has 
been  unto  us  wisdom  ;  some  life  that  has 
lifted  us  into  deathless  regions  of  noble  be 
ing  ;  in  them  the  graces  of  Thyself  becoming 
grace  unto  us  that  we  may  become  grace 
unto  Thee. 

For  these,  the  noble  of  earth,  we  thank 


Within  My  Heart.  213 


Thee ;  for  the  tender  and  true  ones  we  bless 
Thy  holy  name,  and  ask  Thee  that  like  them 
we  may  become,  for  the  blessing  of  others, 
for  the  enrichment  of  this  earth  in  the  graces 
of  the  divine  and  eternal  life. 

Make  us  so  true  that  our  lives  will  be  a 
bugle  blast  for  many  a  one  so  sorely  battling 
against  the  false.  Make  us  so  good  that  we 
in  others  will  create  goodness,  as  Thy  sun  in 
its  gentleness  creates  these  growing  things  of 
Thy  wide  earth.  Make  us  so  loving  that  all 
our  ways  may  lie  in  tenderness,  and  taking 
all  the  troubled  and  the  sad  in  the  great 
faith  that  Thou  art  love,  and  all  Thy  doings 
but  a  Father's  faithful,  tender,  holy  care. 

So  wilt  Thou  ever  be  seeing  of  the  travail 
of  Thy  soul,  satisfied  in  Thy  children ;  and 
Thou  in  them  and  they  in  Thee  so  glorified. 


XXX. 

ABROAD  ON  THE  THOUGHT  OF 
GOD. 


215 


Abroad  on  the  Thought  of  God.        217 

ABROAD  ON  THE  THOUGHT  OF  GOD. 
The  birds  in  the  morning  sing, 

And  the  evening  hears  them  still ; 
For  they  are  abroad  on  the  thought  of  God, 

And  not  by  their  own  sweet  will. 
No  blame  to  their  being  is, 

No  sin  that  compels  to  pray ; 
What  they  must  be  is  His  decree, 

Who  heareth  no  creature's  nay. 

O,  peace  of  the  birds  steal  in, 

Becoming  my  sore  heart's  ease  ; 
For  where's  my  blame  for  this  life's  red  flame, 

Consuming  as  it  may  please  ? 
Compelled  unto  what  I  am 

By  a  power  I  can  not  see, 
I  have  no  voice  in  my  being's  choice, 

And  this  life's  sweet  tyranny. 

Then  my  voice  in  the  morn  may  sing, 

And  the  evening  hear  it  still ; 
For  I  am  abroad  on  the  thought  of  God, 

And  not  by  my  own  sweet  will. 
No  blame  to  my  being  is, 

No  sin  that  compels  to  pray ; 
What  I  must  be  is  His  decree, 

Who  heareth  no  creature's  nay. 

Yet  does  my  heart  declare 

I  may  sing  as  sings  the  free, 
Though  without  my  nay,  an  eternal  yea 

Determined  that  I  must  be. 


21 8        Abroad  on  the  Thought  of  God. 

I  may  choose  what  I  become  ; 

Creator  with  Him  I  am 
To  share  the  blame  for  my  life's  red  flame, 

Burning,  or  storm,  or  calm. 

So  my  voice  in  the  morning  sighs, 

And  the  evening  hears  it  still ; 
For  though  abroad  on  the  thought  of  God, 

And  not  by  my  own  sweet  will, 
Much  blame  to  my  being  is, 

Much  sin  that  compels  to  pray  ; 
What  I  must  be  in  His  decree 

Is  my  answering  yea  or  nay. 

Creative  power  is  mine 

To  reject  or  choose  the  right ; 
There  is  much  I  will  that  I  may  fulfil 

In  liberty's  dread  delight ; 
Of  His  being  mine  own  partakes 

Who  has  willed  that  I  be  free, 
And  know  His  peace  in  a  sweet  increase 

As  His  truth's  fulfilled  in  me. 

My  voice  in  the  morning  sings, 

And  the  evening  hears  it  still ; 
For  I  am  abroad  on  the  thought  of  God, 

And  abroad  on  my  own  sweet  will ; 
With  Him  I  share  my  blame, 

And  my  sin  that  compels  to  pray ; 
What  I  must  be  is  our  joint  decree 

As  I  answer  Him  yea  or  nay. 


Abroad  on  the  Thought  of  God.         219 

SO  much  we  find  in  Thy  creation,  our 
Father,  that  hurts  us,  so  much  that 
seems  the  death  of  kindness  and  of  love.  Not 
simply  that  these  things  interfere  with  our 
life,  retard  our  growth,  turning  us  back  upon 
the  evil,  but  that  it  makes  us  ache  to  see  and 
know  the  hurt  of  others  of  Thy  creatures. 
We  are  hurt  with  the  wounds  of  all,  in  the 
impoverishment  of  all  we  are  made  poor. 

Yet  do  we  find  in  Thy  creation  a  marvel 
ous  kindness,  a  grace  of  unsearchable  ten 
derness,  in  flowers  breathing,  in  fruits  and 
grains  ministering,  in  the  beating  of  count 
less  hearts  that  may  break  and  bleed  ;  in  all 
Thy  forces  some  kindness  done,  some  crea 
tion  of  beauty  and  gladness  marshaling  out 
of  the  confusion  of  changing  and  of  pain. 
Life  that  is  everywhere,  seeming  to  fill  all 
fulness,  is  a  grace  of  kindness,  a  pulse  of 
some  love  going  forth  to  bless,  so  that  it 
comes  to  us  in  a  great  and  happy  faith,  that 
Thou,  who  art  the  fulness  of  all  life,  art 
most  kind,  Thy  being  but  an  everlasting 
love,  Thy  creation  making  for  the  happiness 
of  all. 

This  very  kindness  in  our  hearts,  by  which 
the  hurt  of  the  world  is  our  wound  aching 
in  the  heart  of  all  our  joy,  is  from  Thee,  is 


220        Abroad  on  the  Thought  of  God. 

Thy  meaning,  as  much  as  is  a  bird,  or  a 
harvest,  or  a  stream.  As  soils,  disturbed  by 
change  and  set  at  toil  of  growth  through 
magic  looms  of  seeds,  intend  a  blossom  and 
a  fruit,  so  are  Thy  meanings  but  this  gentle 
ness  that  stirs  our  hearts,  this  kindness  mov 
ing  us  that  we  may  be  in  all  its  graces  mer 
ciful.  That  which  seems  most  natural,  that 
which  stirs  us  to  the  greatest  glory  of  admira 
tion,  is  not  fierceness,  but  gentleness ;  is 
not  destruction,  but  creation  ;  not  cruelty, 
but  kindness.  Jesus  more  than  Nero  seems 
Thy  true  intent,  a  showing  forth  in  lovely 
flesh  the  deepest  meanings  of  Thy  gracious 
heart.  The  earth  is  full  of  ministries,  life 
giving  up  itself  in  service  unto  life,  a  neces 
sity  of  unselfishness  everywhere,  even  in 
destruction  creation  but  at  work ;  and  so 
the  law  of  life  is  love,  the  order  of  the 
universe  is  ministry,  kindness  the  grace  in 
which  life  drinks  its  fullest  cups  of  bliss,  all 
dear  and  serving  tenderness  at  one  with  Thy 
great  life,  the  kind  and  loving  ones  fulfilling 
in  Thy  being,  deathless,  full  of  everlasting  joy. 
And  we,  to  fulfil  ourselves,  must  be  kind, 
breathing  out  mercy  as  the  flowers  their 
fragrance,  as  the  fruits  round  into  beauty 
that  they  may  feed  earth's  hungers,  reknit- 
ting  life's  each  raveling  sleeve  of  service. 


Abroad  on  the  Thought  of  God.        221 

The  holiness  in  Thy  universe  is  loving  kind 
ness.  We  mate  Thy  heart  in  love  and  life 
when  we  are  busy  doing  to  the  least  the 
kindness  that  Thy  being  means.  Not  pray 
ers,  not  gorgeous  rituals,  not  cathedrals  vast, 
or  creeds  of  great  thoughts'  fashioning,  is 
that  which  pleases  Thee  and  makes  us  great 
in  Thy  holiness,  but  little  kindnesses  done, 
so  sweet  and  natural  like,  so  unselfishly,  that 
they  are  forgotten  in  the  doing. 

Even  as  Thou  dost  fulfil  in  Thy  creation, 
ever  busy  at  the  ministries  of  life,  so  may 
we  fulfil  in  being  kind  to  all,  in  healing 
wounds  of  body  or  of  soul,  in  making  life 
as  rich,  as  happy  as  may  be  for  every  heart 
that  beats.  Not  simply  for  our  brothers  of 
the  human  kind,  but  for  our  brothers  of  the 
earth  and  air,  for  each  sharer  with  us  in  the 
joy  and  ministry  of  life. 

So  will  we  reveal  Thee,  so  become  like 
Thee,  Thou  fulfilled  in  us  and  we  in  Thee  ful 
filled  unto  a  peace  eternal,  come  from  all  the 
troubling  of  our  making,  our  green  pastures 
and  still  waters  experienced  here,  when  Thy 
shepherdhood  is  at  the  full  glory  of  its  love, 
loving  in  our  love,  serving  in  our  service,  a 
human  kindness  in  all  the  kindnesses  we  do, 
a  gentleness  within  our  lives  that  says  to  all 
a  mercy,  grace,  and  peace. 


XXXI. 
EVERYWHERE. 


223 


Everywhere.  225 


EVERYWHERE. 

Thou  art  lowing  in  Thy  kine 
And  bleating  in  Thy  sheep  ; 

Thy  singing  is  the  happy  birds, 
Thy  chanting,  ocean's  deep. 

Thou  art  blowing  in  Thy  winds 
And  shining  in  Thy  sun  ; 

Thou  ripenest  the  growing  grains 
And  all  the  saps  that  run. 

Thy  tenderness  is  baby's  face  ; 

Thy  blushes  are  the  grapes  : 
No  thing's  within  Thy  universe 

But  that  Thy  loving  shapes. 

Creation  is  Thy  coming  forth 

To  do  Thy  holy  will ; 
And  every  voice  when  truest  heard 

Is  saying,  "  Peace  !  be  still !  " 

In  everything  Thy  loving  glows ; 

I  find  Thee  everywhere ; 
No  thing  is  anywhere  but  that 

Thy  being  it  doth  share. 

And  so  I  live  eternal  life  ; 

And  nothing  ever  dies  : 
What  we  are  naming  death  is  but 

Some  fuller  life's  surprise. 


226  Everywhere. 


'"THY  universe  is  one,  O  Lord ;  Thy  uni- 
*  verse  is  many.  One  love  through  all 
beats  out  its  holy  tides  of  life.  And  yet  in 
numbers  countless  are  the  affections  that 
glow  out  in  this  so  varied  creation.  There 
is  the  glow  that  is  a  star,  that  is  a  burning 
sun  ;  the  glow  that  is  a  sea,  that  is  a  moun 
tain  vast  j  the  glow  that  is  a  rose,  that  is  the 
blushing  grape ;  the  glow  that  is  a  bird,  that 
is  a  fish  that  swims  the  waves  ;  the  glow  that 
is  the  falling  rain,  the  harvests  lifting  in  the 
autumn  winds ;  the  glow  that  is  the  gentle 
sheep,  the  lions  fierce  that  make  us  so  afraid  ; 
the  glow  that  is  a  mellow  June,  December 
harsh  and  cold  ;  the  glow  that  is  the  wasting 
storm,  the  summer  day  of  peace  ;  the  glow 
that  is  the  helpless  babe,  the  great  heroic 
man ;  the  glow  that  is  in  every  leaf,  and 
never  one  exactly  like  its  mate ;  the  glow 
that  is  in  every  man  and  none  is  just  the 
same  ;  the  glow  that  is  in  this  so  sweet  and 
strange  a  life  we  live,  with  many  moods, 
our  song  played  out  in  many  keys. 

And  yet  the  love  that  is  at  life  in  every 
thing — so  different  each  from  each,  and  each 
to  each  ne'er  perfect  like, — is  Thy  one  love 
that  makes  itself  complete  in  many  joys  as 
everything  becomes.  One  truth  in  all  keeps 


Everywhere.  227 


everything  at  faithfulness  to  its  nature  and 
its  work.  And  yet  in  numbers  countless  are 
the  truths  that  love  works  out  in  all  this 
world  of  beauty  infinite.  A  truth  makes 
water  water,  always  this  and  nothing  else ; 
and  fire  but  always  fire  and  nothing  else. 
A  truth  makes  grain  be  always  grain,  and 
fruit  in  mellow  globes  be  always  fruit.  A 
truth  it  is  that  makes  the  thrush  a  thrush, 
and  never  vulture  darkening  days  with  its 
so  carrion-haunting  wing.  A  truth  makes 
sheep  be  always  sheep,  and  never  ravening 
wolves ;  the  oak  be  always  oak,  and  never 
thistle  stinging  tongues  of  kine.  Each  life 
works  out  itself  by  truth,  and  so  becomes 
itself,  no  other,  changing  ever  and  confus 
ing  thought.  And  so  there  is  the  truth,  the 
orderliness,  that  is  a  rose  \  the  truth  that  is  a 
grape  ;  the  truth  that  is  a  bird  ;  and  every 
thing  that  is,  from  every  other  thing  diverse, 
itself  unto  itself  forever  true.  And  change 
has  its  own  truth,  a  law  by  which  it  works 
its  transformations,  as  life,  or  we  ourselves, 
fulfill  among  these  elements  of  earth. 

And  yet  the  truth  that  is  the  faithfulness, 
the  being  of  everything,  is  Thy  one  truth 
by  which  Thou  dost  live  and  work  out  Thy 
thoughts  in  all  these  lives  that  are  fulfilling 


228  Everywhere. 


on  Thy  earth.  So  all  things  together  live, 
together  grow,  each  helping  all,  all  helping 
each  ;  each  enriched  by  all  that  is,  and  we 
in  truth  enriching  all  that  makes  its  calls 
upon  our  lives,  that  asks  a  service  of  our 
hands. 

One  tune  Thy  love  through  truth  is  sing 
ing  out,  each  thing  a  note  in  Thy  so  great 
glad  harmony.  This  truth,  the  shining  face 
of  tender  love,  let  help  us  of  the  human 
kind,  until  we  shall  indeed  be  one  in  deepest 
love,  in  highest  endeavor  to  live  out  our 
lives,  howe'er  diverse  we  are  and  never  meant 
to  be  the  same.  May  we  have  love  for  each, 
for  all ;  and  in  that  love  do  service  beautiful 
in  self-forgetfulness,  in  faithfulness  as  fine  as 
are  the  deeds  Thine  own  hand  does.  May 
we  be  so  at  peace  with  all,  that  their  great 
good  may  bless  us  ;  that  our  good  be  grace 
and  riches  unto  them.  Thy  one  love  blend 
our  hearts,  until  all  differences  be  not  hate, 
nor  hurt,  but  help  and  healing  for  each 
other's  wounds.  Thy  truth  make  all  our 
thoughts  so  faithful  that  they  may  never  be  in 
confusion,  but  clear,  and  answering  others  as 
the  notes  for  music  do.  Thy  life  live  out  in 
ours,  that  they  be  each  to  each  Thy  gentle 
ness  making  great. 


XXXII. 
SOMETHING  HIGHER  SINGS, 


229 


Something  Higher  Sings.  231 

SOMETHING  HIGHER  SINGS. 

In  everything  some  higher  is, 

The  lowlier  to  complete, 
And  make  for  every  loving  heart 

Each  change  but  bitter-sweet. 

Nor  heart  nor  wing  beats  out  a  tune, 

But  something  higher  sings, 
To  sanctify  in  happier  life 

This  earth's  sad  passionings. 

Within  the  dove  a  tenderer 

Croons  out  its  gentleness, 
With  peace  eternal  every  wind 

Of  every  heart  to  bless. 

Within  the  rose  a  finer  rose 

Is  sweetening  all  the  air, 
That  every  garden  of  the  soul 

Be  always  growing  fair. 

Within  the  grape  one  ruddier 

Is  at  its  blessed  deed, 
That  it  may  bless  the  soul  of  man 

In  some  great  higher  need. 

Within  the  kine  some  nobler  herd 

Its  gentler  service  yields, 
That  there  be  ministry  divine 

In  all  our  spirit  fields. 


232  Something  Higher  Sings. 

• __ 

No  lowlier  life  is  anywhere 

But  that  some  higher  makes ; 
No  lowlier  perishes  at  all 
But  that  the  higher  takes,— 

Takes  and  works  out  in  lovelier  forms, 

In  life  diviner  yet ; 
Each  change  ascension  from  the  top 

Of  holy  Olivet. 

Within  my  love  a  purer  love 

Is  at  its  holy  life ; 
In  all  my  thought  some  truer  thought 

With  wiser  thinkings  rife. 

Within  my  being  Fatherhood 

So  satisfies  its  thought, 
As  unto  holier  childhood  I 

Am  always  being  wrought. 

So  life  in  me  and  for  me  sings 

But  endless  happy  songs  ; 
And  death  for  them  no  silence  is, 

But  sky  that  each  prolongs ; 

Where  'neath  I'll  find  whom  I  have  lost, 

The  loving  ones  who  died, 
Death  but  some  dearer  change  of  life 

That  each  has  glorified. 


Something  Higher  Sings.  233 

HTHINKING,  our  Father,  Thou  doest  Thy 
1  thoughts,  creation  becoming.  When 
Thou  hast  a  deep  affection,  a  great  stir 
ring  of  heart,  Thou  livest  it  forth,  and  it 
becomes  a  grace  of  things  that  are.  Through 
what  Thou  doest  Thou  livest  forth  Thyself, 
that  Thou  mayest  be  fulfilled  in  many  ways, 
in  countless  children.  Thou  art  saved  in 
Thy  deeds  from  self-communion  in  a  sel 
fishness  meaning  death.  By  what  Thou 
doest,  Thou  dost  enrich  in  fulness  of  life; 
what  is  expressed  in  creation  becoming  more 
and  more  some  enriching  of  Thyself. 

Thou  hast  a  dear  thought,  and  it  is  done, 
a  bird  upon  these  winds  of  earth,  and  that 
thought  is  evermore  a  richer  thought  to  Thee, 
enlarged  in  that  thou  didst  share  it  with  a 
glad-beating  other  heart.  Thou  hast  a  dear 
heart's  tenderness,  and  it  becomes  a  flower 
breathing  out  its  sweetness  on  the  winds ;  in 
its  deed  Thy  loving  deepened,  and  it  made 
far  more  Thine  than  if  Thou  hadst  not 
shared  it  with  Thy  children  of  the  earth. 
Thou  hast  a  thought  of  child,  Thy  central 
being's  tenderness,  and  Thou  dost  do  its 
deed  in  the  dear  babe  upon  the  mother's 
breast,  in  man  immortal  in  Thy  life  that 
never  dies;  and  in  this  deed  of  man  Thou 


234  Something  Higher  Sings. 

dost  enrich  Thyself,  in  gracious  life  Thyself 
more  fixed,  a  greatening  of  Thy  universe. 
In  doing  Thou  hast  being,  and  in  all  Thy 
passing  deeds  Thy  thought,  Thy  love,  en 
riches  ever,  Thou  becoming  more  and  more 
divine. 

So,  too,  must  we  fulfil  ourselves.  So  is 
the  doom  upon  us  of  doing  well  our  deed  of 
life,  that  in  its  passing  we  become  a  fuller, 
truer  man,  fulfilling  in  a  grace  of  being 
beautiful  like  Thine.  Teach  us  the  saving 
power  of  a  deed.  Teach  us  that  our  being's 
fulness  only  comes  as  we  do  out  whatever  from 
Thee  stirs  within  our  hearts.  So  be  this 
truth  a  part  of  us  that  we  will  always  do  the 
wise,  right  deed,  the  deed  of  love  that  fruits 
a  glory  in  each  opportunity.  As  Thou  art 
fascinated  unto  making  birds  and  flowers 
and  all  the  green  and  growing  things,  as 
moves  Thy  heart  to  make  all  things  alive,  to 
bring  forth  man  that  Thy  great  being's  graces 
may  be  shared,  so  may  we  seek  ever  to  do 
the  deed  which  is  joy-bringer  to  the  world, 
which  is  a  saving  righteousness  to  men, 
which  is  a  kindness  winning  hearts  into  its 
spell,  which  is  a  holiness,  a  beauty's  own 
great  heart  wrought  out. 

We  do  the  right,  the  deed  but  passing  as 


Something  Higher  Sings.  235 


it's  done  ;  but  yet  is  life  enriched  for  us,  for 
those  for  whom,  to  whom,  the  deed  is  done. 
No  thought  is  richly  ours  until  we  do  it  well; 
then  is  it  a  fixture  in  this  subtle  life  of  ours. 
No  love  that  stirs  the  heart  is  truly  ours 
until.it  becomes  a  deed,  like  bread  for  some 
poor  hungry  soul.  Then  it  becomes  a  grace 
of  being,  a  richness  of  life,  an  eternity 
abiding  every  change  of  time.  The  soil  lies 
dead,  a  dull  and  disappointing  thing,  until 
the  flowers  lead  it  forth,  until  the  harvests 
become  its  deeds  that  show  its  hidden  glories 
to  our  happy  eyes.  Then  is  it  rich  in  beauty, 
and  in  plenty  that  was  not  before.  So  we 
lie  lifeless  until  in  deeds  we  express  ourselves, 
and  then  we  are  saved  unto  a  fulness  of  life 
and  glory,  like  the  fields  clothed  in  their 
harvests. 

Ever  would  we  be  doing,  that  so  we  may 
become;  that  from  all  wasting  of  this 
precious  life  we  may  be  saved ;  that  being 
may  fulfill  in  all  Thy  busy  toil  that  thinks 
no  ill  to  man;  that  Thy  great  heart  may 
rejoice  in  its  unselfishness,  as  all  Thy  uni 
verse  is  shaping  to  a  song  of  joy,  Thy  crea 
tion  moving  to  its  blossom  and  its  fruit. 


XXXIII. 
TO  EVERY  HEART  THAT  BEATS, 


237 


To  Every  Heart  that  Seats.  239 

TO  EVERY  HEART  THAT  BEATS. 
Thou,  Lord,  art  life,  and  giveth  life 

To  every  heart  that  beats  ; 
Each  thing  that  pushes  blossomward 
Thy  holy  life  completes. 

Thou  art  at  joy  in  everything 
That  from  Thy  life  takes  shape  ; 

Thy  loving  is  the  lily's  breath, 
Thy  laughter  is  the  grape. 

Thou  playest  in  the  meadow  lambs, 

Thy  joy  the  robin  sings  ; 
Thy  tenderness  is  mother-love 

That  holy  children  brings. 

There  is  no  cursing  in  Thy  heart, 

Thy  hand  lifts  not  to  blight, 
To  make  joy  triumph  everywhere, 

Thy  being's  deep  delight. 

Thou  perfect  Fatherhood  !     I'd  give 

A  perfect  child  to  Thee  ; 
O  enter  all  my  being's  deeps 

And  make  me  such  to  be. 

Then  we  shall  both  be  perfected, 

Each  heart-beat  satisfy  ; 
Then  every  breath  will  be  a  song, 

Each  change  a  wind  to  fly. 


240  To  Every  Heart  that  Beats. 


hast  a  child's  heart,  O  God,—  a 
child's  heart  that  never  grows  old.  So 
it  is  that  tender  flowers  from  that  child 
heart  of  Thine  come  forth  to  bless  the  earth. 
So  come  the  lambs  at  play  ;  the  youngling 
birds  at  joy  to  learn  their  spread  of  wing, 
their  flight  of  song.  So  morning's  new  each 
day,  a  dewy  babe  to  take  our  hearts  in  joy 
of  innocence.  So  comes  the  spring,  a  laugh 
ing  child,  to  search  out  for  us  our  lost  child- 
heartedness  and  make  us  child  again,  from 
sin  and  care  and  selfishness  so  free,  as  we 
laugh  answer  to  its  blossoms  and  its  birds 
and  give  ourselves  to  kisses  of  its  winds.  So 
come  we  to  this  everlasting  flight  of  being, 
Thy  dear  child-heartedness  in  us  made  flesh. 
So  come  our  sacred  babes  to  flock  with  us  in 
life's  so  joying,  hallowing  flight. 

That  dear  child-heartedness  of  Thine 
made  flesh,  the  holy  breast  of  Mary  nour 
ished,  and  her  first  glad  motherhood  did 
guide  in  all  those  secret  years  where  hills  of 
Nazareth  send  answering  beauty  to  the  happy 
Galilee.  O  love  and  holiness  beyond  our 
thought  —  an  incarnation  divine  beyond  the 
jangling,  lifeless  words  of  stupid,  dead  the 
ologies—may  our  hearts  open  to  the  truth 
till  Thou  in  us  art  born  a  holy,  saving  Christ, 


To  Every  Heart  that  Beats.  241 

in  all  our  conscious  world,  a  laughing  child 
of  the  eternal  love  and  life. 

And  yet,  and  yet, — O  glory  far  beyond 
our  poor  dull  hearts  to  know ! — Thou  art 
made  flesh  through  flesh  of  ours.  Thou  art 
here  in  our  sacred  babes  at  happy  childhood 
in  our  homes.  Their  childhood  is  some  holy, 
glad  becoming  of  Thine  own.  Their  child 
hood  is  Thy  childhood  come  to  earth. 
Thine  own  divine  humanity  in  dear  creative 
love  lives  out  in  them.  Thy  face  becomes  in 
theirs  that  we  may  look  upon  it  without  fear, 
nor  suffer  any  hurt  from  its  great  holiness. 
Thy  life  is  here  in  theirs,  in  gracious  heart 
beats  of  a  perfect  love,  that  Thou  mayest 
live  it  out  before  our  eyes,  within  our  homes, 
for  blessing  that  its  undimmed  holiness  could 
never  give  ;  for,  came  it  without  such  tender 
indirection,  it  would  blight,  as  sun,  direct, 
unveiled  of  clouds,  would  turn  the  beauty  of 
Thy  growing  earth  to  aching  desert  wastes. 

And  so,  O  God,  beneath  the  weight  of 
glory,  lowly  bow  our  hearts,  too  high,  too 
wonderful  the  truth.  Thou  art  here  in  this 
little  babe  of  ours.  Incarnate  here  Thine  own 
child-heartedness  that  is  eternal  and  living 
out  in  all  Thy  universe  that  we  become  in  it 
an  everlasting  childhood,  beautiful,  divine, 
p 


242  To  Every  Heart  that  Beats. 

at  changeless,  faithful  answerings  to  Thy 
great  fatherhood.  O  love  and  life  !  in  this 
great  truth  so  take  our  hearts  that  we  be 
growing  ever  childlike  through  the  years.  A 
childhood  of  innocence  is  the  babe's.  Be 
ours  the  childhood  of  wisdom  ever  beautiful, 
aging  never,  ever  deepening  into  a  being  the 
holy  counterpart  of  Thine.  Then  will  life 
be  to  us,  in  us,  what  it  ought.  Then  will  it, 
lived  out  among  our  fellows,  bless,  and  be 
some  saving  hymn  that  they  will  joy  to  sing, 
enraptured  by  such  singing  into  holy,  happy 
life. 

When  we,  O  gracious  Father,  realize  this 
high  eternal  truth — though  high  as  heavens, 
yet  near  as  are  these  beating  hearts  of  ours — 
it  gives  to  grief  such  holiness  of  comfort 
when  Thou  takest  from  us  the  beautiful  chil 
dren  that  Thy  tenderest  loving  gives.  They 
are  not  dead.  In  Thine  own  everlasting 
childhood  they  but  move  to  holier  life,  to 
deeper  joy.  In  this,  to  us,  so  dark  and  sad 
a  change,  they  have  but  gladdened  into  fuller 
life  than  earth  could  give.  They  are  in  Thee 
an  everlasting  joy  and  beauty.  And  what 
they  are  we  shall  become,  and  live  with  them 
in  Thee  our  everlasting  home. 

O  Lord,  from  all  the  sin  that  makes  so  old, 


To  Every  Heart  that  Beats.  243 

from  all  the  selfishness  whose  cares  so  kill 
our  childhood  beauty,  which  they  who  live 
for  others  always  know,  from  everything  that 
keeps  us  from  our  right  of  conscious  child- 
heartedness  in  Thine,  save  us  with  Thy  re 
deeming,  holy  tenderness.  Make  us  and 
keep  us  children,  and  so  will  Thy  glory  of 
truth  and  righteousness  live  out  in  us,  and 
men  be  glad  thereat,  and  by  such  gentleness 
of  Thine  own  grow  great. 

And  then  so  wise  and  helpful  we  will  be  to 
these  little  ones,  our  trust  from  Thee ;  and 
so  near,  so  near  to  our  translated  ones,  earth's 
blindness  call  the  dead ;  and  Thou  in  us, 
and  we  in  Thee,  in  childhood's  ever  glad 
becoming,  will  have  a  peace  and  joy  the  earth 
can  never  give  nor  ever  take  away. 


£>on't 

Jcientific  Law  of  Happiness* 

BY 

THEODORE  F.  SEWARD. 


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\TQRDS  OF  COMMENDATION. 

•esident  George  A.  Gates,  of  Iowa  College.  -esn 

ire  few  lessons  more  universally  needed  among  the 

:an  people  than  that  which   this  little  book  so  '.ity, 

r  enforces.     Genuine  thanks  lor  the  spirit  that  fail 
to  and  sends  out  so  helpful  a  message." 

John  Willis  Baer,  Secretary  of  the  Society  ne 

of  Christian  Endeavor. 

/IR.SEWARD:  —  To  displace  worry  and  all  its  evils  jcal 

;ace  and  quiet  that  comes  by  taking  God  at  His  rjs. 

hat  this  busy  world  needs  to  learn.     Trusting  ,ej,_ 

His  best  will'  lead  God  to  trust  us  with  more  of  ter 

Where  His  grace  abounds,  worry  and  anger 
be  found.'1 


,-ow 
,jce 


From  a  Private  Letter.  [* 

st  year  has  been  a  precious  one  to  me,  in  that  I  ;  of 

n  to  practice  what  you  so  beautifully  teach. 
iibelief  in  a  most  insidious  form.  1  am  casting 
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.  That  evil  is  a  fact,  but  not  a  positive  force; 
o  be  warded  off  rather  than  attacked  is  a  new 
d  full  of  power."—  MKS.  E.  S.  G.,  Grinnell,  la. 


ERHOOD  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNITY, 
18  WALL  STREET,  NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 


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IHeaven  l£ver\> 

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New  Church  (Swedenborgian)  is  one  of  the  most  spirit 
ually  and  practically  helpful  which  has  come  to  our  table. 
There  are  many  who  have  an  entirely  false  understanding 
of  the  teachings  of  Emanuel  Swedmborg,  and  think  that 
he  was  intent  mainly  on  setting  forth  his  ideas  concerning 
the  heavenly  state.  Such  persons  should  read  this  little 
volume.  ...  Its  great  purpose  is  to  apply  the  teach 
ings  of  Jesus  to  everyday  life  and  to  lead  Christian  be 
lievers  to  a  better  understanding  of  their  duties  and 
privileges  as  disciples  of  Chi  ist." 

The  "New  York  Independent"  says: 
"  These  sermons  will  appeal  to  a  wider  conipa^y  of 
readers  outside  of  the  New  Church  to  whose  ministry  the 
author  belonged.  They  are  gentle  and  catholic  in  spirit, 
take  a  strong  hold  on  the  reader's  conscience  ard  in  his 
relations  to  present  duty,  and  are  composed  in  a  i  attrac 
tive  literary  style." 

SWEDENBORG    PUBLISHING  ASSOCIATION, 
GERMANTOWN,  PA. 


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